I tried to tell myself it wasn’t important that there were clearly many details of Rainy’s past I didn’t know. We’d only been married three months, newlyweds almost. Although we’d known each other for years before that, I was beginning to understand there were depths to Rainy I had yet to plumb. Because of what little she had told me and her secretiveness about the rest, I was beginning to suspect that those depths were quite dark. I could have pressed her, but one thing I knew about Rainy for sure was that until she was ready to share these things with me, I’d just be beating my fists against a hard, closed door.
We were near enough to the wall along the border that as we went into and out of dry washes and arroyos, its tall, dark, flat face loomed and then disappeared from our sight. I watched three vultures circling above the cacti and mesquite, and it made me think of the cartoons I’d seen forever of people dying of thirst in the desert and saying something funny. At that moment, the prospect didn’t strike me as particularly humorous.
We came out of a wash, and as we crested the next rise I hit the brakes. A white Chevy Tahoe was parked across the road, blocking our way. Along the shoulder perpendicular to it sat another vehicle, identical. Both had light bars on top and broad green slashes down the rear doors, and as I drew up to them, I saw the writing across the sides: BORDER PATROL. Several uniformed officers stood beside the vehicles, taking a good, hard look at Rainy and me through our windshield. One of the officers separated himself from the others and approached our rental car. When I’d made the travel arrangements, I’d requested a Jeep Cherokee. The one they gave me was clown-nose red.
I lowered my window, and the heat of the afternoon flooded in.
“Afternoon, Officer,” I said.
“License,” he replied in an even tone.
I pulled it from my wallet and handed it over.
He read it and said, “Minnesota. Long way from home.”
“You sound like Texas to me,” I said. “Long way from home.”
He smiled briefly. I knew I probably didn’t fit any demographic he might be concerned about. He bent and looked through my window and studied Rainy on the other side of the Jeep, and any friendliness vanished from his face. He handed my driver’s license back and walked around the front of the vehicle to Rainy’s side. She lowered her window.
“You have a driver’s license, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it?”
Rainy opened her purse, drew out her wallet, found her license, and gave it to the officer. He looked at it carefully, then eyed her for an uncomfortably long time.
“Is anything wrong?” I asked.
“Are you a citizen of the United States, ma’am?”
“I was born in Wisconsin,” she said.
He considered this. “My wife’s brother lives in Chippewa Falls. You know where that is?”
“Ninety miles east of the Twin Cities. They brew Leinenkugel’s beer there.”
He nodded, but didn’t seem a hundred percent satisfied.
“Does my skin color concern you, Officer?” she said. “I’m an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, the indigenous people in our neck of the woods. I’m an Indian.”
“You didn’t look Mexican to me, ma’am, but I couldn’t quite place you. We have to be careful. I hope you understand.” He returned her license. “Where you folks headed?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” I said. “Somewhere around Hebron or Lacabra.”
“Most visitors take the north road. Safer.”
“Trying to save a little time.”
“Your business there?”
“Looking for someone. Family.”
“Name?”
“Bisonette.”
“Is that first or last?”
“Peter Bisonette.”
The officer turned and called toward the others in uniform. “Jake, the name Peter Bisonette ring a bell?”
“Nope,” one of them called back. “Should it?”
“Can’t help you, Mr. O’Connor.”
I nodded toward the vehicle blocking our way. “Kind of an odd place for a speed trap.”
“Move it,” the officer called, and one of his companions got into the Tahoe. “Sorry to have detained you folks. You’re free to go on your way.”
I raised my window, and when the Border Patrol’s Tahoe had moved aside, I continued down the back road.
“Did you see the vultures circling back there?” I said. “What interested them, do you suppose?”
“I don’t even want to think about that,” Rainy said. “Do I look Hispanic to you?”
“Your skin’s pretty dark these days. Black hair and brownish eyes, too. But to me you don’t look Hispanic. You look beautifully Ojibwe.”
“If I was white, he wouldn’t have taken a second look at me.”
“Probably not.”
“It doesn’t upset you?”
“That he scrutinized you a little more carefully because of your skin color? Not really. If he’d harassed you, that would have been different. He was just doing his job, which isn’t an easy one, I imagine.”
“Spoken like a member of the club,” she said.
“Club?”
“Those who wear or have worn a badge.”
“Is that really what’s upsetting you?” I said.
“Peter is half-Mexican. He looks very Hispanic. What if he was driving one of these roads and was stopped by the Border Patrol?”
“If he was respectful and wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t, he would probably be just fine.”
“Your Native blood doesn’t show, Cork. You don’t get looked at twice. To be Indian anywhere, and to be Mexican as well, especially here, can you imagine how difficult that is?”
“I can, Rainy. And I hope you understand that I can also imagine how difficult it must be to be a Border Patrol officer. A conscionable officer, anyway. Back there, I just saw a man trying to do a tough job. I didn’t see any disrespect.”
“You were with me, Cork. Isn’t it possible that made all the difference?”
“Rainy, if we’re going to get through this, we can’t fight each other.”
“You’re right.” But when she said it, her words were still hard.
Beyond the Coronados, we entered a broad basin with blue mountains along the far horizon. I turned north, and once again we climbed slowly onto a high plateau that was a mix of grassland and irrigated fields. Soon I began to see, as we had on our way to Cadiz, an occasional vineyard, dark green against all the other colors that had been washed pale by the sun.
The town of Lacabra was little more than a crossroads with a few new-looking homes, a gas station, a farm supply and implement store, a restaurant called the Golden Fork, and a hacienda-style building with a sign out front advertising Arizona wines. I figured we had the best chance of tracking down the Harrises at the farm store. We hit pay dirt inside, got directions, and Rainy and I turned around and headed back the way we’d come.
We arrived at a cutoff that shot east toward vineyards nestled against rugged hills. The sign at the juncture read HARRIS RANCH ROAD. We’d passed it on our way into town, but I hadn’t been watching. We followed the road among the vineyards, under a stone arch into which had been etched the words SONORA HILLS CELLARS, and approached a grand home of tan adobe surrounded by palms. A hundred yards to the right, hard against a hillside, stood a large structure that looked like a warehouse. In front sat a forklift, a dusty F-150 pickup, and a motorcycle. Wooden pallets stood stacked against the building, whose broad door was open. We parked beside the pickup, got out, and walked to the opened door.
“Sorry, folks. No tours today,” called a voice from the cool shade inside.
“Not here for a tour,” I called back.