The headlights came up behind me fast and close. Afraid I was going to be rear ended, I pulled over and let him pass. The green Border Patrol van sped past me. "Asshole!" I thought. "He didn't have to do that."
Ahead almost out of sight, the van pulled over, U-turned and came rushing back toward me. This time I pulled over and stopped. "What the hell is going on?" I thought.
I turned the headlights off and watched the van disappear again in the rear view mirror. The van had turned around in the distance behind me and was headed back more slowly, sweeping the bushes along the shoulder of the dark country road with spotlights. The van was still well back when two small figures darted across the road, almost running into my dark colored truck.
"Over here! AquΓ, aquΓ!" I shouted at them. Don't ask why. I don't know myself. My shouting stopped them in their tracks. They looked at the van approaching behind, then at me and must have realized their options were becoming very limited at that point. I reached over to open the passenger door and two darkly dressed figures jumped in and closed the door. Quickly I started the truck and slowly drove off so that I wouldn't attract attention. The van continued its search with the spotlights and soon disappeared from view behind us.
With the initial excitement over, reality began to sink in. If the Border Patrol caught me helping illegals, I could be arrested. Worse, who the hell are these people? They could beat me senseless and take my truck!
"Gracias, seΓ±or. Muchas gracias," said a shaky young voice--the voice of a woman.
"SΓ, gracias, seΓ±or," the other figure said, also a young woman.
I looked at them blankly in the dim light from the instrument panel. I began to relax.
"No problem, uhhh...de nada," I answered. Growing up in California, you can't help but pick up some of the language, but I hadn't picked up much.
"My name is Martin," I told them, pointing at myself. "Como se llama?" I asked them.
"Graciela...Gracie," the one next to me answered. She pointed to her friend. "This is Marisa." They were dirty and their clothes were torn, but they certainly weren't much of a threat to me!
"Do you speak English?" I asked them in general.
"SΓ, a little," Gracie said. "Marisa, no English."
"My God! How old are you guys?" They looked too young to be crossing the border like this alone.
"Diez y nueve," said Gracie, nervously slipping into Spanish. "I mean 19. Marisa is just 18."
"Where are you going?" I asked. "Do you have a place to go?"
"We have relatives in Fresno. I live there. I went back to Mexico to bring Marisa. Can you help us?"
Obviously, I had jumped into this whole thing without a plan. I was winging it minute by minute. When I picked them up, I had no idea what I was going to do beyond getting them out of their immediate predicament with the Border Patrol. I looked at them now. Young, tired, scared and probably hungry.
"Look. I don't know how much I can do. Fresno is a long ways off, and I have to work tomorrow. I'll get you a motel room so that you can clean up and get some rest and we will decide what to do in the morning. OK?
I found a quiet motel along the old highway. It was cheap and out of sight. The women stayed in the truck while I registered. I asked the clerk for a room towards the back. He handed me a key and I walked back to the truck.
"Room 124," I told the women absently. I drove around to the room and parked just outside the door. Gracie and Marisa got out of the truck and grabbed the small duffels they had thrown in the back of the truck. I hadn't even noticed that they had bags with them.
The room was clean with a queen bed, a small TV and a couple of unmatched chairs and a table. Gracie and Marisa stood just inside the door, not sure of how to act.