Chapter 1

"Look, there's a gas station on the west side of the road about fifteen miles down the road from the hotel you're gonna stay at. Meet me there at around eight."

That was one of our technicians. He takes care of the equipment that measures what's flowing through our pipeline. His job takes him out into the middle of nowhere all the time because the sites where his equipment is located are on or near the right of way of a pipeline that starts way down in Texas and goes all the way to the land of Yankees up north, billions and billions of BTUs for heating and electricity and factories.

Somebody has to make these things work. That's us. My part of the pie is that I'm the electrical guru. Something wrong with electricity? I'm the guy you call.

I got called because this particular site has had a lot of equipment failures during spring storms – lightning, the tech says. I figure it's worth a visit, so a mere five-hour drive, and overnight in yet another hotel, and then meet with the tech, let him lead me to his site, and I'll take a look.

The next morning I'm in the appointed parking lot. We meet, shake hands, I refresh my coffee, and then I follow him out to the site. I love these things. The instructions to the site include the dreaded term "then turn off the paved road". We unlock and lock a series of gates as we travel across private land, finally arriving at the little building in the middle of the endless miles of caliche clay and limestone and cactus and mesquite and other flora and fauna of the semi-arid land.

There's a chain-link fence around the building, but the gate's off the hinges. We pulled through the gate. I parked my truck outside the yard and exited, leaving the door open. Out in the middle of nowhere, right? I opened the back door of the crew cab and grabbed my camera. Left that door open, too.

I looked at the mess, the result of too many weeks on the road, and I promised myself that I'd clean the thing out. After all, it's spring, and the layers of winter clothing were a couple of feet deep, the things that had served me well in the dead of winter.

"Dunno what they're looking for," Duncan said. "No water. It's a long way to come to strip the place for copper. But every time I come here, the gate's off and the door's open."

I nodded. I kicked a bundle of clothes rolled haphazardly together, stashed against the side of the building. I saw evidence that this place had been a stop for a lot of people.

"Yeah," he said about the sad bundle of clothing. "The right of way's a common path for illegal immigrants. The coyotes dump 'em on this side of the Rio Grande. Some of 'em come this way, headed for Houston, or at least closer than they were..."

"Must be tough," I said.

"Yeah. I can imagine. This place in July ... I hate it."

We went about the business at hand. He opened up enclosures filled with equipment, I peered inside, we chatted.

I made recommendations, sketched a few things on a pad. "I'll put all this together in an email and send it to you, and copy our bosses," I said. "They have to justify paying me the medium bucks."

"Yeah, I know," he commiserated. "You think your ideas are gonna work?"

"I give 'em about a 90% chance. This is just doing the housekeeping" I said. "We should've put this stuff in on the original installation, but people didn't know back then. If this doesn't work, then the next steps are more expensive."

"Oh."

"It's worked everywhere we've tried it, but lightning is a strange thing. Does crazy stuff."

We secured the cabinets, did our best job of repairing the door lock and re-installing the gate, and then I followed him back through the scrub and onto the highway. I turned north. He turned south, headed to other sites.

I was on the long road, driving through the countryside. Wasn't even a main highway, but it was a pretty good road. I punched up some good music on the sound system. My music. Miles by Mozart, my preferred travel mode.

I was engaged in the arpeggios of a piano sonata when I thought the back of my seat moved. I shrugged it off as an irregularity in the road that I'd failed to notice. A little later, it was a definite push, and I was thinking about hitting the shoulder for a look when a dark-haired head popped up.

"Señor, tiene agua?"

It is to my great credit that I didn't exercise any of several options, among them crapping my pants, driving off the road, or screaming. I also credit myself with my terribly measured response. "Huh?"

The rounded face, crowned and framed with short, dark, shiny and disheveled hair, with a pair of dark expressive eyes, looked thoughtful, then said, "Do you have water?"

Okay. Time to use my expansive Spanish vocabulary. "Si." That was about it. On the front seat beside me, a concession to what I know about working in South Texas, sat a little ice chest. I reached over, opened it. Extracted a bottle.

"Gracias. Thank you."

Okay, I do know a little more Spanish. I just as well try it. First, the face in the back seat sucking down that water looked young. Early to mid-teen, but I'm used to judging white kids, so I could be wrong. Second, if there was mayhem on his mind, he had me dead to rights.

'His'. I could be wrong about that. Let me try. "¿Cómo se llama?" I think I remember that was something like "What's your name?" I added another ten percent of my entire Spanish vocabulary, "Por favor?"

"Carlos Ortiz," the kid said, then kept talking, dumping a string of Spanish on me that made as much sense to me as Sanskrit does to a turtle.

So okay, the remainder of my Spanish: "No habla."

The face knit again, a little struggle evident, then "I am sor-ry. I learn Eengleesh. Not use it."

"Better than my Spanish, Carlos," I said. I started pulling the truck onto the shoulder, slowing down.

"Thank you for the water. I will go away now," the kid said sadly.

I spoke slowly. "I am not going to make you get out. I – you may sit in the front seat."

A smile. "Gracias! Thank you!"

The truck stopped. The kid popped open the door, ran around the front, opened the front passenger-side door and got in. I tugged my seatbelt, indicating that he should buckle in. Got a questioning look.

"Seatbelt. For safety," I said. I unbuckled mine, crawled over the console, tugged on his, pulling it across the slight torso... ??? Something's not right here. The accommodations don't match my definition of a 'Carlos'.

I kept my thoughts to myself and pushed the belt's tab into the receiver, snapping it.

'Carlos' must've sensed something in my motion because the smile waned a bit.

I motioned to the little ice chest, now on the passenger side floor. "More water? Coca-cola?" I flipped the lid up on the console. Inside was my little stash of snacks for the road. "Food?"

The kids snagged a granola bar, peeled back the wrapper, and devoured it.

Okay. Now I have to ask. "Carlos? Or Carlita?"

The dark eyes flashed and the face turned downward.

"Carlita."

"Okay," I said. "I am Dave."

"Hello, Dave," she said. I noted that a little less accent was used.

"How old are you, Carlita?"

"Catorce años ... uh, fourteen years[PtC1]."

She looked it, I guess. The disguise transformed her into an asexual waif who could be anywhere from ten to eighteen.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"Guatemala. Near Guatemala City."

"Do you know where you're going?"

A sigh. A headshake.

"Do you ... you want me to take you to an immigrant shelter?"

"They would keep me. I do not want to be kept."

"Your English seems to have gotten better."

"I was raised in an orphanage since I was six years. It was run by American missionaries. They taught us English."

"Why did you not stay there?"

"Narcotraficantes," she said. "The police did not stop them. We were robbed, then forced away. My tia, my uh, aunt, she came to America to start a business. She was going to send for me when she could."

"Your aunt. And you said you lived in an orphanage," I said.

"She was not really my aunt, just a friend of my mother. She worked in the orphanage, she is an educated woman."

"Do you know where she went?"

"Not Houston. New Orleans, I think. The last letter was a year ago."

I'm thinking 'lost child'. I don't know what I would do in the same circumstances.

"What is your plan?" I asked. I had to know if there WAS a plan.

"The group I was with, we were going to go to Houston and then I was going to try to ride with somebody to New Orleans."

"How were you going to live?"

"Churches. They tell me that churches will feed us. I have some money also."

"Money? How much?"

She looked around the truck, I guess to gauge how likely I was to rob her. "I have fifty-one dollars."

"Carlita, that's not much money. And is Carlita your real name?"

"Yes. It is nice to be called by my name again. I have been Carlos for weeks."

"You travelled as a boy?"

"Yes. I have heard stories about what happens to girls."

I'd suspected as much myself, but I said nothing.

"Nobody knew. Until you. I hid it well. Even my ... monthlies?"

"Okay. Period is a more common word, Carlita. I'm surprised you succeeded."

"There were so many. I did not let myself stand out. I was not loud, I was never the first or the last in line."

"Very wise."

"Until you fastened my belt, nobody knew."

I smiled. "I'm sorry. I will tell nobody. Now, when is the last time you've had a good meal?"

She looked at me with sad eyes. "Days."

"Do you have clothes besides the ones you are wearing?"

"I have a pair of pants and a shirt and under ... undergarments. They are not clean."

'Damn!' I told myself. I couldn't just dump Carlita off somewhere. I guess I was raised wrong. Dad was one of the world's worst about taking in stray dogs. It must've rubbed off.

"Carlita, do you want help? I can help you. We can get you some new clothes, wash what you have, have a good meal or two, then see what we can do about locating your tia..."

She looked at me. I know what she's thinking.

"No, I am not trading you those things for something else."

"Why would you do this?"

"I solve problems for a living. You have a problem. Maybe I can help."

"Why?"

"Because a man should take care of those who need help."

"I have no money to pay you."