Carole Douglas - Virtual Virgin

My silver familiar had tarted itself up as a cuff bracelet inset with lurid blue glass ‘stones’ instead of turquoise . . . nothing anyone would want to steal, but useful proof of presumed previous jaunts to Juarez.

I slung my backpack over one shoulder like a hobo bag and clutched the laminated key to the city in my right hand. My tan-shy white skin wore an air-brushed patina of bronze. Gray contact lenses hid my vivid blue eyes.

With my thick black hair, I looked Latina on first glance, which was important not only for general undercover purposes, but because I held the passport of a Poxx TV News researcher named Ashley Martinez.

An American crew fresh from Juarez had been purging their minds of the horrors they’d seen there in a dim El Paso hotel bar. An ex-reporter like me could blend in and ask questions.

“Plan on paying mordida —bribes,” said a woman who was a smidge heavier, older, and less blonde than most female oncamera TV reporters. “Tell me you’re not a stringer or freelancer?”

“My crew’s already in Juarez, but this is my first trip down. Delilah Street, WTCH-TV, Wichita.” We shook hands.

“I’m Louise Dietz,” she said. “So Kansas is sending crews to Juarez?”

“The drug lords’ smuggling routes cut through the heartland, and so do the addiction and gun-running problems these days.”

“That’s for sure.” She sipped a spiked lemonade. “That’s another thing: buy bottled water or canned pop and drink only that.”

I pulled an Aqua Fina bottle out of the backpack at my feet, which was loaded with high-protein energy bars and foil-packaged dog food.

“You look prepared,” she admitted. “I’ve been doing news for more years than you’ve known how to write your pretty first name, Delilah. I anchored in Santa Fe in my glory days, but I like hard news reporting better. I live to expose the bad guys. You’re not driving in?”

“No. Walking the bridge.”

“So you’re meeting the crew muscle right on the other side?”

“That’s the plan.” News crews on dangerous turf hire locals as guides-cum-bodyguards. Quicksilver didn’t speak Spanish but he sure spoke intimidation, and he was waiting outside the bar.

“You’re lucky your dark hair passes around here. Still, I wouldn’t send a woman crew member on foot alone across the street in Juarez,” Louise said. “If the pollution from the burning tires and junker cars don’t get you, the crazy traffic or the kidnappers will. You’ve got nerve.”

“I’ve got a mission. Like you say, there’s a lot of pollution in Juarez that needs to be exposed. And stopped.”

She was silent for a moment, measuring me. “Most of it’s human. Or are you one of these New Agers that think a bit of the unhuman is messing in our world since the Millennium?”

“I think bad is bad, whatever its origin.”

“Look for it at every step, in every face, and you’ll do all right down there, kid.”

Meanwhile, I’d been watching a young Latina woman about my size who’d been flirting with the beach-boy handsome videographer.

“Thanks for the tips,” I told Louise in good-bye, in pursuit of my oblivious prey. She should have been watching every step, every face. Especially mine.

I followed her into the ladies’ room.

Señorita Martinez had closed her eyes to reapply Urban Decay Zero eyeliner to her lids, a faux decadent beauty product line so appropriate to this time and place. I was heading into the Zero Zone all right. Zero safety. Zero protection. Zero humanity. First I had to get in, so I slipped the tourist card out of the passport in her unzipped purse while her eyes were closed, getting pretty. Back out in the still-sizzling late afternoon sun, I collected my furry escort.

Tourists from the United States weren’t subjected to as much scrutiny as those wanting in. Still, me and Ashley’s tourist card, which allowed a stay of more than seventy-two hours, merited a hard look. My small backpack got a total feeling up. Martinez was a surname that could cut both ways.

“Researcher?” the border guard asked.

“I hope to become a reporter, meanwhile I tote and type up things on my laptop for the glamour guys and gals on camera.”

My notebook computer was getting a thorough check too.

“A woman crossing over alone with night coming on . . . that’s beyond dangerous.”

“I’m meeting the crew right on the other side.”

“Anybody who goes into Juarez these days is crazy.”

“I get you. Hopefully they’ll give me a ton of stories to file and I’ll be back over tomorrow.”

“Trust no one.”

“Thank you, sir.” I accepted custody of my phony tourist card and backpack. “I don’t.”

Crossing the bridge, I was charmed to see Mexican children of all ages wading in the Rio Grande shallows as the shadows lengthened. I paused to enjoy the evidence of kids playing in these brutal times in this godforsaken city.

I noticed a small boy holding a squirming puppy maybe six weeks old. How cute, how sweet . . . I’d never seen Quicksilver at that age. A lump thickened in my throat to see innocence in a war zone.

The boy hefted the pup and threw it far out into the river.

No!

I breathed again to see the tiny head surface. The pup swam hard back toward the shore and the boy . . . when it got there, it was again picked up and thrown into the current. Again blind instinct homed it right back to its tormenter.

I curled my fingers in the cyclone fence towering over the walkway. “No!” I cried.

The child looked up, grinned, bent to pluck the tiny pup from the water, and threw it in farther. Even at such a young age, the puppy regarded a human as its pack leader and would return, no matter what.

Already the cultural divide was staring me in the face. Small boys could be cruel, but moreso in a land where families were gunned down and men dumped in acid and beheaded and young women tortured and raped and buried in the surrounding desert. This was where Ric had been sold into slavery by his own kin at the age of four, long before the cartels had become so unbelievably brutal and bold.

“No,” I screamed again, pulling American bills out of my backpack and rolling them up to stuff them between the twisted wires, hoping they’d drift down to the kid, bribe him to be good. He knew he was upsetting the privileged americana . The puppy would soon tire, sink, and be swept away.

In the middle of the broad river another puppy paddled along, it too heading for the tormenting boy. Was an entire litter being slowly drowned? With human life so cheap, I was witnessing the ghastly trickle-down effect.

The next dog-paddler finally reached shallower water. The forehead I’d spotted rose slowly out of the water. A huge canine body came lumbering onto the shore, the water-logged pup a dripping, scruff-of the-neck burden in the big jaw’s delicate grip.

Quicksilver!

Quick dropped the exhausted puppy on the sandy shore, then stood to his full height and shook the water from his fur until his wolfish hackles stood high and almost dry. His jaws grabbed the boy by the scruff of his T-shirt, and, with one toss, hurled him into the river deep enough to sink and rise and tread water, then swim furiously for a distant shoreline.

A preteen girl who’d been watching the entire drama got the courage to wade ashore and cradle the rescued puppy.

Quick gave one wolfish howl that made every playing child pause in saucer-eyed awe. He spun and streaked away, the sunset haloing his fur with an eerie rose-silver light. I was sure the kids had a new legend to report to their families: seeing the guardian spirit of the river who tolerated no rough play with helpless animals.