Borderlands

Roots go deep in the Okanogan Highlands. They must, for life could not otherwise exist in this place bounded by scrubby sage and ravaged by extreme seasons. Fire and ice shape the land. The grande Ponderosas undergo constant attack from beetles, drought, and wild fires. Indeed, native pine seeds require a fiery ordeal to sprout, then must press forth against snows half as deep as I, Adalina, am tall. Yet despite these trials, the Ponderosa's ridged bark offers the gift of grace in a vanilla fragrance that intensifies throughout summer until the entire forest hums with it.

This high desert is nothing like the desert of my mamacita's childhood. She grew up in the red hills of Oaxaca, Mexico. Certainly, the Okanogan has no ancient pyramids. Yet, just as surely the Cascade Mountains that border our western river valley hold secrets as powerful, si?

Mi familia has been here long enough to speak English. Still, my dreams slip into Spanish. My three children are fluent in an American dialect that often leaves me puzzled. So although I write well in English, I offer this story in my mother's tongue. This I do to make a confession, si, but more importantly to protect others whose need is greater.

Like my mother before me, I am desert bred. Unlike her, I am educated. Norte-Americana schools taught me that besides molten rock spewed from volcanoes, immense glaciers once plowed this earth. These actions etched the way for a river so much wilder than its hermana, little sister, that its edges lapped the peaks. The frozen mountains left behind very little clay and the finest of sands we call moon dust, because of the way it puffs up when you step upon it--as though gravity cannot hold it. The soil is so porous that unless I add table scraps, fallen leaves and manure in fall, irrigation water pours through faster than the border patrol casts out a deportee. Without my help, the roots of tender plants foreign to this area will not survive.

With my children, I pour over world maps. Unlike them, I suspect that our native sunflowers have taproots that reach from here to Kerguelen Island in the Indian Ocean. This island lies where roots go through the center of our earth to emerge on the opposite side. I am told otherwise, but I like this idea too much to let it go.

My mother brought tomatillos, garlic, and chiles from her mother's garden in Oaxaca that I now grow in mine. The breads I bake come from Guadalajaran recipes of my father's birthplace. My family clamor for bollilo, Jalisco bunuelo and pan dulce, but mostly I prepare flat breads like telera and tortillas. I use a modern stove. Always I have frijoles de la olla--what North Americans call beans in broth--bubbling there. Always. My teachers told me not to use such powerful words as 'always' indiscriminately, but I do not. Always comes to me not by accident, but because of my belief in a future.

We live as far from the border of my youth as you can be in this northern nation--so far that we touch upon another country entirely. Those fenced miles that block out the sky are missing along the boundaries to Canada, though. Instead, we pass through gates somewhat larger than a galgo Espanol, a racing greyhound, must exit to reach the long track before him.

My man Ruiz, who calls me Leticia rather than the Letty of my Norte-Americana friends, once worked in other people's vineyards. Now we own our own land and grow our own grapes to make our baberra and sauvignon wines, richer than those from the lands of our fathers. The touristas, who drive through here on their way elsewhere, stop into our tasting room. Along with wines named for the grapes we grow, they buy my adobo, sweet pegoste from local apples, jalapeno jellies along with jalapenos en escabeche, salsas and bundles of dried chilies. To northwestern appetites, these condiments taste exotic indeed.

Before he joined the Air Force, my eldest boy Angel made me labels I can print out myself and glue onto the jars. My likeness is good, I am told, but the woman on the label surprises me with her innocent eyes. I am much more fierce than that and not so thin, I think.

In early spring, I go into the highland arroyos to pick wild asparagus, which I preserve for winter, but also sell at our local Farmer's Markets. This task is best done early in the day before the sun can beat the thoughts from my brain and edge them with copper. I wear a gaucho hat tied beneath my chin against winds that try to send my hat back to Argentina. Always I carry beans, tortillas and fruit with me to honor and celebrate our good harvest. Always, that word I am not to use, I bring more water than I need. Ruiz insists I carry a pistol; drug runners cross this border just as they do the other.

On this day, I wander a deep ravine. This one runs from los Estado Unitos into Canada. Or from Canada into the United States, depending on which way you travel. There are signs on barbed cattle fences to warn all visitors to report immediately to the closest border patrol should they find themselves on the wrong side of one place or the other. Immediately. Random fence posts with signs separate these two countries.

No intimidating wall with concertina wire, no menacing patrols or helicopters, no red-faced citizens with rifles, although border patrol does make an appearance--now and then. Often the guards ride sturdy mustangs gentled by people incarcerated in Colorado, 'colored red' in my native tongue. The mustang horse itself comes from early Spanish stock, another useful emigre.

Thus these highlands where I trek refuse containment, by either fence or armed guard. You must understand the vastness of this upland desert. The land is raw and beautiful, dangerous with rattlesnakes, puma, and bear. Coyotes prowl both steppes and forest, more recently with their bigger brother, el lobo. Together with hawks, eagles, and crows, they clean up road kill.

In such a natural place, color and movement warn of danger. That is how I come to find one old man, three women and five children in my arroyo. That and by their smell. You see, when you eat asparagus, it changes the odor of your urine. That alerts me first. Then, the billowing flags of their clothing lead me to them. The youngest boy tries to flee.

Should I feel fear? I do not. I recognize the hunted looks in their eyes. Despite being born in this country, I, too, have experienced this need for better choices--for a good life. The man is a mature hawk, all beak and purpose, his talons hardened by rough labor. The women's eyes, the eyes of those who will die for their young, stare into mine. We are mothers together in that instant. They wear head covers and robes, very beautiful with borders that carry no warning at all. Their pliable shoes are not good for this rocky land, pocked with puncture vine and pit vipers as it is. Knowledge of pursuit hollows their eyes and makes their cheeks gaunt. I do not need my gun; these are no vermin.

I hunker down as though to grind corn, then wrap my arms around my knees. "How long are you here?"

"We crossed in the night and stay long enough to move on safely," says the woman whose white hair peeks from her headcloth. Her skin is darker than mine, but her English better. She has the gnarled hands of a caregiver.

I look at their meager belongings, at the silky head of the baby burrowing into his mother's chest. Then I lift the edge of a beaded scarf, thrown in haste over their scanty meal. The remains of flat breads and mashed garbanzo beans dry in the parched air.

I say of the scarf, "This is very fine. Did you make it?"

The young mother nods. With a practiced shrug, I release the straps of both my canteens. I take a long draw, wipe the rim, then cap it and hand both containers to the older woman. She makes no pretense of refusal and accepts with dignity. I slip my mesh bag and hand her jars of beans, rice mixed with salsa, tortillas, and the cherries I intended for my meal. My mouth waters over the cherries, for I wait all year for them. However, I know where I can get more. These people are especially lucky today for I baked empanada last night and have Ibarra chocolate, too. They will need to eat the last quickly, before the heat melts it. To forego the gratitude I see brimming in the women's eyes, I squeeze the elder's hand, then leave.

I do not tell Ruiz of my encounter for fear he will be conflicted as I am not. He is a good man and proud of his citizenship. While I am no less proud, I see myself as a citizen of the world, si? All through the day and later that night, when my husband's warmth presses against my back, my thoughts buzz like mason bees swarming the red Oaxacan flowers in my garden. I can barely sleep. My mind dabbles with an imagined history for these people, these refugees. With more haste than usual, I prepare my family's breakfast and send them off to their day. Eager to learn more about the strangers, I leave for the arroyo before the sun rises above the highlands.

Alkaline dust fills my mouth with disappointment. They are gone. Only the diminished smell of their urine remains. A bouquet of sunflowers, those whose roots arrow deep into the earth, sits in my bean jar with just enough water to keep them fresh. Wrapped around the base is the scarf I admired. This bounty brings tears to my eyes.

I wear the bead-trimmed scarf for festivals and tell none of my friends where they can find another. I say only that a mother who hopes to give her children a future gave it to me. Ruiz and I live a good life. Our hands are callused, but not so much that we refrain from touching. We give back to our community, which I see as greater than this vast and wealthy country.

We are exotic blooms in this high desert. Like baby's breath, our roots go deep enough to reach the Kerguelen Island on the opposite side of the world. We simply need time to establish ourselves. While there are those who find this thought disturbing, such thinking sets my dreams free.