Steven Gould - Jumper:Griffin _s Story

"Grif-" I stopped myself. Then continued. "John Grifford. They call me Griff." The woman claiming to be from the school district had asked for me, for Griffin O'Conner. "What happened to him?" I gestured at the blue tarp.

"Bandits. He's a Mexican making the crossing to find work. Pretty poor but with a little money, usually everything his extended family can scratch together in U.S. dollars so he can travel to a city with jobs once he's across. There's them on both sides of the border that prey on 'em.

And after it happens, they don't think they can complain to the police on this side, and on the other side, half the time it is the police." Sam paused as I painfully lowered myself into the chair. "Now, once I heard you talk, I knew you weren't Mexican, but his story could be yours-who attacked you?"

I looked away and put my hand to my mouth. The cotton gauze threatened to shred.

He added the unbearable bit: "Where are your parents?"

I nearly jumped. It was like a blow. I knew I wasn't in danger but I still wanted to flinch away. I wanted to flee, to run, but I knew that no matter how far I went it wouldn't change the facts.

"They're d… d… DEAD!" There. I'd said it. Said something I couldn't even think.

"Where?" Sam's eyes widened a bit and his eyes twitched sideways. "When?"

He thinks it happened where they found me, that the people who attacked me could still be around. "San Diego-last night."

Oh, bugger. What was the point of giving him a false name? Now he'd be able to read the newspapers and figure out who I really was.

Something my dad used to say went through my head: Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to speak and confirm it.

Sam dropped his shoulders back down. "How'd you get all the way out here? Did they dump you? Could they still be around?"

I shook my head. "I got away-I came here because it was… safe." I looked at the blue tarp. "Well, I thought it was safe."

"How?"

I shook my head. "Can't tell you. But honest, those that kill-" I bit down on my lip and squeezed my eyes shut for a second. "The last I saw of them was in San Diego. Not here."

He stared at me for a moment. "Well, Pablo, in there, needs some pretty urgent medical attention. We'll be putting him in the truck and then I'll radio thecounty EMS, meet them out at the highway. The police and the border patrol will get involved pretty quick, so I just have one question. Should we be mentioning you? I mean, you didn't go to the police in San Diego, did you?"

I stared at him. "What kind of adult are you? Of course you're going to tell the police, no matter what I say. I'm just a kid. Doesn't matter what I want. I'm a minor."

He blinked, then laughed without making any noise, like I'd said something funny.

"So why are you even asking?" Too strident. I clamped my mouth shut, determined not to say anything else.

He stared at me, his brow wrinkled. "Kid, something really bad happened to you and yours but all I really know is that you're in trouble. I meet people in trouble all the time. They're undocumented workers, crossing. I'm not here to judge them, either. What Consuelo and I do is try to keep them from dying. Sometimes it's just a little water, sometimes it's major medical evac. But we don't judge and we don't involve the INS unless we have to.

"I don't know what's best for you. I don't know enough about what happened or why. You're not dying-I don't have to involve the county and the police. Don't know if the cops would just take you back someplace where the people who did this could get at you again or if they even would want to get at you. So, I'm askin' and I mean it: Should I tell the police about you?"

I shook my head side to side, hard, and the scab on my neck tore and stung.

"Well okay, then. I won't." Sam started to get up.

Despite my best intentions, I said, "Why do you do this, helping the illegals, I mean?"

"Someone's gotta. I've been doing it for six years, since I found three dead men on the edge of my property. Consuelo, she lost her husband and teenage son east of here. Their coyote got them halfway across the worst of it and demanded more money before letting them into the truck, still out in the middle of nowhere. She got the story from a woman who didn't have to walk-who didn't die in the basin."

I licked my lips. "She had the cash?"

"She offered a different form of payment."

I looked at him, puzzled.

Sam said, "God, you're young. You talk like you're older so I keep forgetting. She offered sex for passage."

I felt my ears get hot.

"How old are you, kid? Eleven, twelve?"

"I'm nine."

Sam's jaw dropped.

"I'll be ten next month," I added.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I should talk to the police."

"You promised!"

"No, I didn't exactly promise." He shook his head. "But I said I wouldn't. I won't, I guess." He stood. "Consuelo! jDebemos ir!" He opened the passenger door on the truck. "You ride here. Consuelo is going to ride in the back and tend to Pablo."

"Can't I wait here?"

"Not coming back here. After we get Pablo into an ambulance, I'm heading back to my place." He gestured toward the lowering sun. "Done for the day."

It took me almost as much time to get into the truck as it did for Consuelo and Sam to move Pablo and the stretcher into the back of the pickup, fold the tarp, and stow the camp chairs and ice chest.

He drove pretty slow, because the road-well, calling it a road was reaching. Sometimes it disappeared completely and it felt like he was just driving blindly across the desert, but then the twin ruts would reappear. Other places, going up a grade or down, water had carved deeply into the ruts, and no matter how slowly he drove I was thrown hard against the seatbelt or bounced off the door.

I looked around and saw Consuelo braced in the corner by the cab, shaded by her umbrella. The stretcher and Pablo were secured with straps but Consuelo kept one hand on his forehead, bracing his neck, I guess.

After a half hour we topped a rise and stopped the truck. Sam took a radio mike off its bracket and switched the unit on. "We don't get into range until here." He depressed the transmit button. "Tom-it's Sam Coulton. Got a Hispanic male, dehydrated, some trauma. Got beaten and robbed after crossing south of Bankhead Springs. Was two days without water."

The voice that answered was fuzzed with static, barely recognizable. "You need air evac?"

Sam answered, "Nah. He was conscious when I found him. I've got him on IV fluids and we're less than fifteen miles from Old Eighty. I can meet the ambulance at the Texaco near Desert Rose Ranch Road in about thirty minutes."

"I'll call the sheriff's office. Is he legal?"

"Doubt it. Sheriff for the assault and the INS, if they want, but they might as well send someone to just meet the ambulance at Regional in El Centro."

"Okay-they'll probably dispatch a unit to meet you at the Texaco. Anything else?"

"Nah. Gotta get going if I'm gonna meet the ambulance. Thanks loads. Love to Maribel."

He hung the mike back on the dash and concentrated on his driving. I didn't see how he expected to make fifteen miles in thirty minutes. We were doing much less than ten miles an hour because of the ruts and rocks, but we reached the plain below after five more uncomfortable minutes and turned onto a dirt road that was a highway by comparison. Sam sped up to fifty and we were up to the motorway in fifteen minutes.

"Are those pajamas?" he asked.

I was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, what I normally slept in. "Uh, yeah."

"So you were in bed? When it happened?"

I turned away and looked out the window. It was less than a half mile down the road to a petrol station. To my back, he said, "Okay. I won't press but you want to avoid the cops, make yourself scarce while I deal with the deputy, okay?" He pulled into the shade of the pump awning and began rooting under the seat. After a moment he came up with one plastic flip-flop but he had to get out of the car and crouch down before he finally snaked its mate out from under. He took a couple of dollars out of his wallet and handed them and the flip-flops to me. "Go wash up, then get yourself a soda, okay? Until we're done with the EMS."