Escape, The Conclusion

This is the conclusion to the story I posted last week. To read part one and to see a picture of most of the people in this story, go here: Escape, Part One. And I will soon be out of town through the weekend, but I will catch up on your great blogs when I return.

Liza followed the direction of his pointing arm and what she saw made her drop the food, cover the children's eyes, and pull them close to her.

The passing telegraph poles now held bodies; bodies of men, women, old people, children. Some were hanging, some were nailed on, crucifixion style.

She stifled a scream and forced herself to close her eyes. Other women on the flatbed were unable to choke back their reactions though, and wails and unfettered sobs pierced the otherwise pristine morning.

Inexplicably, the train slowed its thunderous roll and she raised her head in alarm. All over the car, women and children let loose fearful cries. Meli whimpered in her mother’s lap while Carlos wrapped his arms around both of them. The telegraph poles they passed now were free of the gruesome cargo, but the abject horror of what they’d seen sat like a leaden cannonball in their souls.

A railroad man made his way gingerly to the flatbed. “Please, sir, what is going on? Why are we stopping?” Liza asked with as much control as she could muster.

“Only a stop for refueling. We’ve got to make it quick. We don’t know if it was the Villistas or the federales who left that…,” his voice trailed off as he jerked his head in the direction they’d come from.

The next hours on the journey to the coastal city of Tampico blurred. Liza occupied herself with keeping the children’s minds on happier things, but her heart ached.

Tampico was not the haven they’d heard. While open fighting had not yet broken out there, the food shortage was acute. The three went through the hurriedly assembled food supplies Liza kept in her bag despite her efforts to ration it. There were many hungry, especially lone children at the train station, and just as it was in her home, no one around her would go without, except of course her, although she kept that hidden from Carlos and Meli.

She managed to find them a small place to stay, really the back shed of a blacksmith shop, but it was a roof, four walls, and a place more sheltered than the openness of the train station.  It took most of the money she had, but it was all she could do for the present. After the first night spent sleeping fitfully on the dirt floor and knowing she’d be unable to appease her children’s hunger for another day with just long draughts of water from the cold well nearby, she pulled Carlos to her and bent down close to his face.

“Do not, Carlitos, DO NOT,” she emphasized as she squeezed his shoulders, “open this door for anyone but me, OR let Meli or you go outside for ANY reason, not any at all. Do you understand?” She spoke slowly, letting each word sear into him.

“Yes, Mama, I understand,” Carlos replied solemnly, protectively reaching out to Meli.

Liza furtively slipped through the chaotic streets, where people were in a confused flurry, trying to prepare for something, but for what, they didn’t know, and where thousands of refugees from the violence, just like them, flooded in by the hour.

Her feet ached, she felt weak from not eating since they’d left home, and she knew she would break down in a second if she thought of her husband, marked for death and in hiding, but she pushed on. His last words to her, “We’ll find each other again, I promise you,” became her lifeline to sanity, and she allowed herself to dwell on the strength and certainty of them.

Finally, she found one vendor who had something edible to sell, but it took all the coins she had left. It was birdseed, and even at the inflated wartime prices, she was grateful to find it. If birds could eat it, so could they for a little while.

It seemed the streets got more sinister and the people more aggressive as she moved back to the little shed as quickly as her weakened body would allow her.

In sight of the shed, her breath caught and her heart ceased for a moment. The door, which she’d carefully pushed closed and had Carlos latch from the inside, was slightly ajar. She saw a shadow pass inside near the lone window, much too tall for a four and five year old.

Now she was running, sobbing, not caring who she careened into. Her feet had never carried her faster and she hit the door with so much force it banged off its top hinge and broke.

Her eyes expected the worst after what they’d already seen on the journey there, and she thought she’d faint dead away when the reality of the scene hit her. She brought her hands to her face and choked out great, heaving, gasping sobs.

“We found each other again, just like I told you, sweetheart, just like I promised you,” her husband said as he stretched out his hands to her, although it was hard for her to find room in his embrace with the two children already folded inside it.

She sank into his strong arms and continued to cry, but tears of happiness.

They made eventually made it back to their home and hotel in San Luis Potosi, and although there were other near escapes for my great grandfather, the rebels never caught him. He lived out his days in Mexico, and my great grandmother lived to be 95, still one of the strongest and most loving women I’ve ever known.

Escape

She pulled her kids closer to her, though they were already nestled tightly in her arms. Five year old Carlos and four year old Meli had nodded off to sleep shortly after the train started moving, and for that she was grateful, but many things still scraped through her heart.

One was the safety of her husband. His parting words to her at the train station seemed to repeat so often that they became her pulse. "Liza, get to the coast- get the kids to safety, and keep yourself safe. We'll find each other again, I promise you." A hurried kiss, and he was gone into the darkness, gone to hide in mountain caves with other men targeted for execution by the warring rebels.

Although Liza's husband had been born in Texas, he and she both were Mexican citizens, proud of the gleaming little hotel they built themselves in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. However, their peace was shattered by the Mexican Revolution, which pitted rebel generals like Pancho Villa against pro-government forces. Because of her husband's foreign birth, he was assumed to be a government supporter and summarily marked for death by the roaming bands of rebels.

It became a cat and mouse game when rebel forces were near. The wanted men like her husband fled to the shadowy mountains to the west,  burrowing into caves they'd already stocked with provisions until rebel forces withdrew. Months before, Pancho Villa himself had even churned up to their hotel on his horse with other bandidos, leveling a rifle at Carlos and Meli. She'd stepped in front of her children and stared him down until he laughed and pulled away. (The Day Pancho Villa Came to Town)

This time, however, was different. A new, murderous spree by the rebels caught even women and babies in its net, and the little family had to escape under cover of night; him to the dark underground of the mountain tunnels and caves, and she and the children on a flatbed rail car, the only space left on the train, eastward to coastal city of Tampico, where the revolution was still only a distant rumble.

Liza didn't know what awaited them in Tampico, but she stoically set her mind to endure what she had to, whatever it took, to keep the children safe.

"We'll find each other again, I promise you," gave her strength. Her tears dried by the time the first rays of the sun warmed her skin and stirred the children. Other women and children on the flatbed car also began awakening, and the burgeoning young voices brought a level of comfort, even on a speeding train.

Carlos stretched and yawned. "Mama, will there be anything for breakfast?" Liza checked her bag, unsure how long she was going to have to make the hurriedly assembled tortillas and jerky last.

Meli was fully awake, too, but said nothing. Her luminous eyes scanned the rapidly passing terrain, broken only by the regularly placed telegraph poles.

"Yes, son, we will have some in just a bit. Don't stand, just stretch your legs here," she cautioned as Carlos tried to arise. "I don't want you to fall off the train!"

He giggled, but rubbed his cramped legs. He put a protective arm around Meli.

Liza kept her eyes on what she could see in front of them. She knew these trains could be attacked quickly by the rifle wielding bandidos.

Seeing nothing but trees, she relaxed just a little and pulled two corn tortillas out of her bag and a piece of jerky for both kids. She smoothed the blanket under them.

It startled her when Carlos yelled, "Look, Mama, look!"

Liza followed the direction of his pointing arm and what she saw made her drop the food, cover the children's eyes, and pull them close to her.

The passing telegraph poles now held bodies; bodies of men, women, old people, children. Some were hanging, some were nailed on, crucifixion style.

(To be continued...)

My grandfather, Carlos, is the little boy kneeling in the front, hands on his knee. His sister, Meli, is next to him, beside the dog. My amazing great grandmother is the second woman from the right. This picture is about the time of this story.

And to read the conclusion to this story, go here: Escape, The Conclusion. 

A Border to Cross

It was a year when heat blistered the land. Rain deserted the region like an adulterous lover, although humidity blew herself up to full strength and forced her sodden belly onto the earth, smothering it.

Already on that particular morning at 7 AM, beads of perspiration were forming on my face as I walked from the far end of the parking lot to my classroom. In the office, I grabbed a tissue and dabbed my face as the secretary said, "We've got a new student. Spanish only. He's going to your 7th grade language arts class."

"Did we get any records on him?" I asked.

She shook her head sympathetically. "No. Evidently in Mexico, he was out of school for a long time, like maybe never was in school at all. An aunt checked him in yesterday afternoon."

I let out a breath of exasperation. It was already a large class, and now I had one who didn't speak English and who may have never even been in school period.

When the 7th graders filed in later that day, I noticed Jaime immediately. He was thin, almost gaunt, and had a new haircut and an ill fitting school uniform. Long lashes curved over his brown eyes.

I showed him where to sit and patted him on the shoulder as I got the other students started on a warm up.

I knelt beside his chair and asked quietly, "Habla Ingles, Jaime?"

His deep eyes widened and he shook his head rapidly side to side. "No, no," he whispered as he stared down at the table. His brow furrowed as he bit his lip. He was the same age as my daughter and my heart melted.

I patted his back again and reassured him in Spanish. He kept his head down until I finished talking, and then he gave me a tiny peek. I smiled at him and although he didn't smile in return, his face softened, just a little.

In the next few months, Jaime initially struggled as he worked to master new lessons and build his English. Soon, though, just as his body filled out from regular meals, his English vocabulary also flexed muscle. He was still shy and introverted, but answered more and more questions in respectful, hesitant English.

One afternoon after school, he was the lone student in tutoring. He labored over a paper he was writing and then sighed and rubbed his fingers as he put his pen down.

"Jaime, how is it going for you? Are things getting easier?"

He looked up, a slight smile on his face. He nodded his head and said haltingly, "Yes, some things better, some things not."

I moved over to his table and sat across from him. "Would you like to tell me about it? How did you end up here? En Espanol?"

He searched my face for a moment, looking me in the eyes for the first time. He took a deep breath and began, in Spanish.

"I came here to find my mom. She crossed the river and came to Houston to find work so she could send money home to my grandma so my little brother and I would have enough food to eat."

"And your dad?" I asked.

"He's never been around. I don't even know what he looks like. We were so sad when my mom left. My little brother would cry for her at night. I told him it would be OK. She loved us and she was trying to help us.

"She sent money and letters, and we were able to get food for all of us. Sometimes she'd call our neighbor's house and we'd get to talk to her. She always told us she loved us.

"But then, we stopped getting letters from her. She didn't send anything, didn't call... We didn't know what had happened. My grandma heard very bad stories about what happened to ladies sometimes who come up here by themselves.

"One night I had enough. I was the man of the family and I had to find out what happened to my mom. So I found the coyote (human smuggler) who helped her get up here. I had a little money saved from what my mom had sent us. I left a note for my grandma and took off with them.

His eyes clouded for a moment. "Many bad things happened on the way, Senora." He exhaled.

"Jaime, you're so very brave. I'm so sorry you had to go through all that."

"That wasn't the worst, though. Once we got across the river, I thought it would be better. El Coyote told us he was dropping us off and we'd have to walk maybe two or three days through the brush to stay away from the Border Patrol, but then he'd pick us up again and we'd get to Houston."

I cringed, remembering the record heat wave we'd had around the time Jaime had arrived and mentally calculating the 47 miles of uninhabited, rugged brushland they'd had to navigate.

"We didn't have any water, but we found some cattle troughs we drank out of along the way. We were so thirsty, all the time. One lady with us got too sick and said she couldn't walk anymore. Her lips looked all weird, really big, and she crumpled onto the ground and closed her eyes and wouldn't talk anymore. I saw her quit breathing. I didn't want to leave her behind, but the leader said we had to, or we'd all die.

"Sometimes, I thought I heard my mom's voice talking to me, but I had to tell myself it wasn't real. More people from our group disappeared. I don't know if they died or just turned themselves in to the Border Patrol."

He paused. I hesitated to ask more because our laws say school employees cannot ask children if they are here legally or illegally, so I waited for him to continue with what he wanted to share.

"I'm not even really sure, Senora, how I was able to find a ride here. The lady I stay with now is a friend of my uncle's, from back in Mexico, and she came to get me when she found out I was here. She's nice to me, but I'm not going to stay here long. I still have to find my mom."

The bus arrived and Jaime had to leave that afternoon. It wasn't but a few days later when he disappeared, withdrawn from our rolls. The "aunt" he was staying with was also gone.

Maybe, just maybe, some day a tall man with long, curving lashes and deep brown eyes will approach me, an older woman on his arm, and say, "Senora, I'd like to introduce you to my mom, my brother, and grandma. We are together again."

I have strong opinions about adults, specifically those who wallow with drug cartels, who cross  borders illegally. You can read it in some of my earlier posts. But where children are involved, my heart is open wide, and always will be.)

Border Insecurity

A friend of ours farms almost 1,000 acres near us. One of his part time tractor hands, a high school boy named Justin, works hard and already has his plans set on majoring in agriculture science in college.

Justin was plowing a remote field about five miles from us last week. He stopped the tractor and climbed down to make an adjustment. While he worked over a disc on the plow, three men emerged from the brush. Two had pistols. They ordered Justin to his knees, hands behind his head. One of the men talked to the other two in Spanish about what they'd do "with the body". He ordered Justin to bow his head and Justin felt the tip of the pistol at the back of his head.

At that moment, the chop- chop sound of a helicopter flying overhead sent the men scurrying back into the brush, allowing Justin to run an adrenaline laced race to the road and escape in his truck.

This is one of several more frequently occurring episodes.

My parents, who live a pasture away from us, have a lovely sun-room at the back of their house, with floor to ceiling windows and a view of their pool. They enjoy taking their morning coffee in this room. One morning before sunrise, my dad left early for an appointment. My mom made several trips through the sun room, tidying things as she went. She heard a noise in the semi darkness outside, and thinking one of their animals might be getting into something, she opened the sun room door and stepped out. There, a set of WET human footprints on the sidewalk leading from the pool to the sun room door stood as stark evidence that someone had indeed been there very shortly before, probably watching  her through the uncovered windows.

There are other stories, too numerous to tell. Not long ago, we always helped people who came through, needing food, sometimes with a pair of shoes or a jacket to keep warm. These were people looking for work, even family groups with small children moving at night through the brush. I have strong feelings about doing things legally, but my heart will never allow me to turn away someone who asks for food or a warm blanket for their child.

These new travelers through the brush are different. They are cartel related. At best they cut fences and kill cattle. At  worst, they leave a grisly wake, especially on the Mexican side of the border, of decapitated bodies, warnings carved into flesh, and worse. Many of these cartel related people literally worship a demon god with rituals so evil I cannot speak of them here. The news media in the U.S. does not report the severity or frequency of what is happening.

It is not all areas in this part of Texas that are having these problems. The beaches, towns, and other tourist areas are safer than the gold at Fort Knox. These folks who deal violence like cards from a deck prefer keeping to uninhabited, remote areas and away from towns and cities. Like cockroaches, they are drawn to dark, unlit areas. They walk a distance through brush and pastures to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints and patrols until they meet their pick-up people at predetermined points on the highway two miles from our house.

Our friends who are Border Patrolmen tell us about things that go on that would unsettle many who feel secure in our border's safety. It's not just Mexican drug cartel laborers who are moving through, but operatives from other countries hostile to the U.S. There are very sophisticated measures now in place to detect people going through who shouldn't be, but they are targeted mainly at checkpoints on the highway and at railroad freight cars.

This has altered my life. At my husband's insistence, I am having to reconsider the regular runs I take through our remote back pastures, as my husband has found the remains of their small campfires there. After the incident with Justin, the area farmers and ranchers have now armed themselves, even when plowing and planting.

We have shored up security at our house, as have my parents. I do not like guns, but I know where my husband's are, where the ammo is, and how to use them. Our daughters do, too.

I do not know what the answer is that will end this.

More than being scared, I am sad. I miss the days when we could be an outstretched hand of help instead of an outstretched hand holding a gun in self defense.

I apologize in advance for this post. I usually try post things that will be uplifting and/or positive, and I know this is neither. It is something, though, that weighs heavily on my heart.

The Day Pancho Villa Came to Town

(This is a re-post from one of the first posts I did. Only one person read it then, so I figure it's safe to put it up! I also found a picture of the people in this story and added it.)

Carlos and his little sister Meli loved playing on the dusty streets of Rosita, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, in front of the hotel their parents owned. There were many games active 4 and 5 year olds could imagine and bring to life.

One evening, Carlos saw his father packing a small bag. "Papa, where are you going?"

His father looked at him seriously. "Son, I've got to go away for a few days, but then I'll be back. I need you to take care of Mama and Meli while I'm gone."

Carlos answered, "Ok, Papa, but you promise you'll be back?"

Papa leaned down and tousled Carlos' hair.

"You have my word on it, Buddy!"

That night, Carlos overheard his mom and dad talking. "Liza, they'll never come after women and children, but I want you to stay safe, anyway."

"Sam, we will be fine. I want YOU to be safe. This revolution is costing many good people their lives."

"I'll be OK, honey. You take care of yourself and the kids and Diego and I will be back once Villa has left town. You know how to get word to me if you need to, " he said, referring to a message relay system involving neighbors that stretched into the nearby mountains where he and his friend Diego would be staying.

Carlos pensively considered things in bed that night. What was his mom talking about when she said, "...costing people their lives?"

He finally drifted into sleep and awoke in the morning to find Papa gone and Mama already rolling out his favorite tortillas. He asked if he and Meli could play outside for a bit. Mama thought carefully and looked him in the eye. "Alright, but Carlitos, you must promise me you will only stay on the porch and if you hear any horses coming through you will come immediately back inside."

" I promise, Mama," Carlos repeated.

As he and Meli played, they saw the usual sights of early morning Rosita; the fruit peddler walking by with his cart, the firewood vendor riding in a wagon piled so high with mesquite that the little burro strained in his traces, and the woman who sold thread and needles from a large bag.

He and Meli played with little pieces of wood they imagined to be pistols, having a fine time shooting each other up. They were so engrossed in their game that they did not notice the men on horseback who had walked their mounts up to the hotel until it was too late to dash inside.

One man who was in front of the others was holding a real rifle, longer than Carlos was tall. Carlos and Meli stood transfixed on the porch as the man moved his horse closer to them and looked at Carlos carefully.

Carlos felt his heart beating faster as he reached for Meli's hand. He refused, though, to show any fear. The man leveled his rifle until it was pointed right at Carlos. The other horsemen watched.

Carlos thought at that moment how sorry he was that he hadn't paid enough attention to what Mama and Papa had asked him to do. He wondered if he would close his eyes when the rifle went off.

Out of nowhere, he sensed someone behind him.

It was Mama, moving faster than he'd ever seen her.

In one swoop, she covered the distance on the porch to where they were, pulled the children behind her, and wordlessly met the gaze of the rifleman. Her outstretched arms ensured not one iota of her children would be visible to this evil looking man.

The rifleman looked down the barrel of his rifle at her for a moment, then lowered it and laughed heartily.

"Senora, you tell your friends and family Pancho Villa does not shoot women or children."

And without another word, he and the other horsemen wheeled around and rode off.

Carlos would remember that day all his life and live to tell his descendants about it. I heard about it from him, as one of the many stories my grandfather Carlos told me of his life in Mexico.