Border Patrol Stories
Tails from the Desert
Another picturesque September morning outside the window of my new duty station in Port Angeles, WA. The workday was entirely mine, since the entire crew of PAIC and two agents had all retired after my arrival six months earlier. This was truly PA heaven. Sure, I could just relax and wait for the phone to ring and alert me to some criminal alien arrested in Aberdeen, or the Port needing help with a ferry arrival from Victoria, but I was too young and ADHD afflicted to be ROD (Retired On Duty) so I adopted a pro-active enforcement profile. I recently had lunch with our affable Sector Pilot, Scott Panchison, and we hatched a plan for him to fly us in to my station's southern boundary, the beachfront airport at Ilwaco on the Oregon Border. All I had to do was schmooze the Pacific County Sheriff into providing ground transportation, and Scott and I would check all his local jails for deportable aliens. Nobody had done so for eons and it would be a bountiful hunting ground, plus I would get a bird's eye view of my current AOR on the magnificent Olympic Peninsula. As I was busy making plans, the phone rang. It was Assistant Chief Aaron Miller from Sector HQ informing me that Port Angeles was next up to detail an agent in support the El Centro Initiative. Respectfully, I reminded him I was the sole agent stationed at Port Angeles. He replied "well, that makes it an easy choice then". "Yes, Sir". So much for plans.
The El Centro Initiative was part of a long-term strategy to gain border control by focusing resources on overwhelmed high-traffic Sectors. Spawned In El Paso, the plan next moved to San Diego while I was there and it indeed made an impact. Detailed manpower was heavily applied, along with new fences and drive-through barriers that pushed the smuggling cartels into much more challenging terrain. Now the hot spot was the low desert badlands of the Imperial Valley. Manpower was easiest to immediately apply, but it also brought inherent resource management challenges. The shift Supes bore the brunt. Besides the usual hectic scheduling and oversight, they had to contend with a constant rotation of agents unfamiliar to the jobsite intricacies. Vehicles were always in short supply anyway, and more bodies accelerated that shortfall. Then you had the Junior Journeymen, many on their first detail, who used their time off like they were on a wild weekend bacchanal in Vegas. Getting drunk or disorderly at the local gin mills on both sides of the line, and generally doing stupid shit like picking up rattlers by the tail and getting snakebit kept the Supes quite busy. By the time I arrived, they had been over-saturated and taxed to their limits by the extra help, with little patience for detailers.
Day one, swing shift, and I was assigned to the 111 Checkpoint. The Senior Journeyman was grumpy right out of the gate, and it looked to be a long weary shift. Then the Desert Spirit smiled upon me. A weathered and jovial agent arrived at the checkpoint and presently introduced himself. "Hey Bro, I'm Rudy Ruiz from Indio, but they all call me the Rude Dawg". Rude personified that rare and magnetic character that drew you into his plans and possibilities; the kind of person you instinctively wanted to be around just to see what happened next. Rude outranked the grouchy Senior Journeyman, and nobody groused when he announced that he and the Detailer were going to check that magnetic sensor. I gratefully climbed aboard his 4x4 and off we went. Rude told me he heard the sensor hit on his drive down from Indio, and figured we might intercept the vehicle that set it off. We headed east into the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range responding to a sensor hit over 30 miles distant. As we drove along the Coachella Canal, Rude lamented that we didn't have time for him to stop at Siphon 16 to check his trot line. He noticed my quizzical look and patted the huge cooler between us, which I assumed carried water and maybe his lunch. "On a good day, I fill this thing with catfish". As we motored on through a desolate mountain pass, Rude said that it was early for loaders, and the sensor might turn out to be scrappers. "What's that"? Rude related that the gunnery range was littered with aluminum bomb racks and large caliber spent brass, gold to the local desert guerrilla recyclers and meth addicts. They sneaked around just like the smugglers trying to avoid military police and the Patrol as they plundered the illicit booty of endless wargames. Sometimes their prizes exploded on them, but that risk was apparently worth their reward.
As we dropped into a valley and onto a miles-long washboard straightaway, I noticed, or more accurately felt, a roar that topped the clamorous racket inside the 4x4's cabin. Instantly, I saw the shadow and twin tail feathers of an F-18, lower to the deck than any jet I had ever seen before flying straight overhead. Rude was just laughing as my jaw dropped. The jet broke left and was gone in seconds, and if I was riding solo, I would have doubted what I just witnessed. After I regained composure, Rude said that the fly-boys did that all the time. They would line up for a mock gun run on Patrol Units traversing the desert, even using the 111 Checkpoint as an aiming point during night shifts. Sometimes, it wasn't the Patrol driving in the restricted military zone, and I can only ponder at what some smuggler thought when they were the target of a low jet pass. Rude said the agents and pilots would all laugh about it after shift when they enjoyed refreshments and war stories at the local watering hole. Damn. When I got back north, I'd have to ask Scott if he ever buzzed La Migra when he trained here as a young Marine pilot. We finally arrived at a crossroads and parked behind some rocks for a time, but the potential load vehicle never showed. Rude speculated the jets spooked our quarry, or they took an alternate route to I-10. He had no intention to return to checkpoint duty, and asked if I wanted to go sightseeing. Heck yes!
Rude said "wanna go to the hot springs and scope some naked ladies"? How do you answer a question like that? He found a road that took us under I-5 east of Holtville where the All-American Canal ran. The place was strewn with trash and didn't strike me as a tourist hot spot, but we spied a lone parked rented camper. "Jackpot" said Rude, and we disembarked the 4x4. As I was picking my way through the debris field, I heard Rude shouting out up ahead of me on the reedy trail. "Hey, hola...wie gehts". Rude indeed found some skinny-dippers at the springs, the waters of which didn't look too healthy, and stank fouler than stale urine. It wasn't what I had pictured when he mentioned "naked ladies". Rude was happily chatting up a pair of very overweight and elderly German tourists, even doing an honor-system immigration inspection, since they quite obviously were not carrying their passports. I told Rude I'd seen enough full frontal nudity thank you, so we continued west to other desert oddities. We hit Slab City and I gawked at Salvation Mountain, a huge mound of debris garishly painted over in neon biblical quotes. At each stop, Rude made it a point to chat up the locals. Most of these folks lived on the fringe of society and the conversation was entertaining. Something different about desert dwellers. This was turning out to be a first-class junket complete with backstage pass. When Rude dropped me off at the end of shift, he said we would resume the tour tomorrow.
The next day I was assigned to the Highway 86 Checkpoint, and Rude was already there waiting for me. We drove west into the desert as seasonal winds kicked up a dust storm that tanned the atmosphere. Brown snot soon soiled my bandana, just like working in the steel mill. Rude took me to a parched location called China Camp, a relic of the Steam Age when America was connecting the country by rail and importing Chinese to do the work. All that remained of the camp was some tilted telegraph poles and scattered junk. I could not imagine working here in the dust and oven-like heat without an air-conditioned 4x4. Rude told me there were miles of old unused rail in this part of the desert, and he once encountered a couple guys taking a moonlight ride on a restored handcar. These small, two-person cars are powered by pumping a bar up and down, and the hobbyists fitted a pickup truck with a winch to put the heavy handcar on the tracks for what must be a wondrous, if illegal, desert cruise. He next took me to the escarpment of the Anza-Borrego and we walked a barren landscape to a tiny oasis hidden in the rocks. It was a lay-up spot that, based on the amount of alien trash, was heavily used by border crossers. As we drove on, we came across fresh vehicle tracks that sparked Rude's curiosity. Following them, we soon found an SUV buried axle deep in the sand. It was a couple San Diego yuppies who were sitting miserably inside the baking vehicle. They had gotten stuck earlier in the day and with no cell phone coverage, they expected to spend the night. Rude deflated their tires to 20psi and used his shovel to helped them out of their fix. We gave them water and directions to a gas station to refill their tires. Good thing for them we happened to be sightseeing. A seismic sensor banged off near the Desert Tower, not too far away so we responded. I had visited the stone tower when I was stationed in San Diego, a spectacular motorcycle ride through gigantic boulder mountains. I never imagined working aliens there, but here I was. We tracked and sacked up a group hiding in a drainage culvert under I-8 and drove to Ocotillo to meet transport.
It was getting close to sunset, and Rude offered to take me to some firehouse grill where PA's liked to eat. En route, we heard dispatch advise that a civilian reported a group walking through Salton City. Rude cocked an eyebrow and asked me if I had ever been there. "No, but lunch can wait, let's go". He smiled and said "you're gonna love this place". Salton City was planned in the 60's as the next big California resort community. That dream never matured, and we were cruising into a dead town on a dead salt sea. It was getting on dark, and the dusty wind was blowing tumble weeds down deserted avenues. I felt like we just drove onto the set of Mad Max with street upon lifeless street of unfinished houses and ramshackle huts. Most homes were well buttoned up, dull flickering candles or lanterns as the prime light source. We saw not a soul in our slow cruise through town. Nobody even peeked out from the dirty windows. Rude said that less than 1000 lived there, but where were they? We drove to the edge of the Salton Sea and got out. Even with the wind, a putrid stench hung heavy in the air as we walked the silent street. Finally, we spotted some life. A woman wearing a long pink dress was standing on the porch of a plywood shack. She appeared alluring at a distance, long black hair and dress blowing with the increasing wind. She grabbed a cane and shambled over to greet us and I noticed she was missing a leg. As she got closer, I noticed she also sported a perfectly groomed mustache that didn't quite fit in with her blackened mouthful of methed-up teeth. I let Rude query her, and walked in the opposite direction towards a man sitting on a board lain across a five gallon bucket by the seashore. He had a pole and was ostensibly fishing in the stagnant waters. I reckoned I had some kinship with fishermen, so I strolled up and said hello. The leathery-faced old-timer instantly got wide-eyed and twitchy with me. He too was minus a limb, one sleeve of his shirt pinned empty to his chest. I tried to calm him and asked what he was fishing for. He jumped up from his seat and showed me his catch, unrecognizable yellowish mutants that looked like they had been dead quite awhile. I got no decipherable information from the disheveled fisherman and moved on. Decay and ruin on every street. This neighborhood was straight out of an end times story. We left minus apprehensions, and I wondered what local curse may have claimed the limbs of those living too close to that acrid sea. If you ever want to see what it looks like after Armageddon, visit Salton City.
By the time we left Salty City, the grill was closed so we made do with jerky and chicharrones from the gas station. "Let's go to the Grassy Knoll and pop a load". We sped off to a knoll totally devoid of grass to monitor Highway S2, a backdoor route to San Diego. It wasn't long before we spotted a target. A white van pulled to the shoulder and went dark. A driver and passenger got out. Presently, we observed two muted flashlights bobbing in the creosote. These had to be the most inept smugglers I'd ever seen. We finally lost patience and blasted down on our quarry. We lit up two skinny white boys with deer in the headlight eyes. They obviously were not smuggling dope or folks, and when Rude asked what was in their big Styrofoam cooler, they broke. They had driven out from Lakeside to collect lizards to sell to their local pet shops. Rude inspected their catch and reminded the entrepreneurs about Fish and Game, who would be happy to heavily fine them and seize their van. He told them to get outta Dodge, pronto, but let them keep their catch. Border Justice Rude Dawg style.
The remainder of my detail after Rude's orientation tour was just as memorable. It turned out that the Shift Commander, FOS John Bryant, had put in for a job with Blaine Sector Anti-Smuggling. Once he realized I hailed from there, he picked my brain about the amenities there. In return I got better assignments. They told me I was the first agent to be assigned an "X", a deterrent position where I was not to move from during the shift. It was at Gordon's Well, a location where the first wooden plank road crossed the desert sands in the early 1900's. They assigned me a trainee, and I shared some tips on four-wheeling. We drove to the top of a steep sand dune, where I broke out a newspaper and he studied for his probationary exam while awaiting nightfall. Pretty soon, a Supe called on the radio and candidly said "Y'all look pretty sitting up there reading that paper, don't get stuck coming down off the hill". I noticed the Supe was glassing us from across the canal, but I was in my assigned area and didn't fret. The trainee was nervous though, and said that Supe was a real hardass. Eventually I low-geared off the dune to drive over to the Supe's position. He turned out to be a swell guy once he realized, unlike many of his current junior detailers, I knew what I was doing. I think his name was Don, and he had been a teacher prior to the Patrol. He was close to retirement and had recently survived a bout with prostate cancer. His biggest gripe was that he had to wear adult diapers as a result of his surgery, and he put the word out that if he were shot, he wanted his troops to strip him of that diaper before the medics got to him. He had good reason for concern. A few shifts prior he had responded to a drive-through sensor due south of Gordon's Well. He intercepted a pickup loaded with weed being followed by two Mexican police vehicles. The Mexican cops said they were pursuing the smuggler and didn't realize they crossed the line. Knowing full well that the cops were running interference for the cartel, the Supe graciously thanked them and advised they should get back south before backup showed. The Supe also knew he literally dodged a bullet, being alone and outnumbered as he was.
One day after muster, I heard a familiar voice in the hallway. It was my old PAIC, now Deputy Chief Ray Ortega. We caught up for a few minutes and he said "let's take a ride". A Ray Ride is what we called it; his trademark. He hated managing from a desk and relished nothing more than hitting the field and making the rounds. "You find out all kinds of stuff just taking a ride" he once told me. I had been his chauffeur many times at CHU. Now he enlisted SBPA John Garvey, another San Diego alumni, as his driver and off we went on a tour of Calexico. As we drove along the All-American Canal, Ray talked about ideas for preventing drowning deaths that regularly occurred there. He mentioned an agent, I think his name was Gary, who had survived going through a drop, a type of dam where the water falls through a tube. Over a fine Mexican lunch, Ray said he was considering a move to Spokane. I reminded him about how he once chastised me for going north; "Strauch, don't you have the weather channel? It's always raining up there". Now Ray just laughed and said "yea, but they have skiing in Spokane".
For being a reluctant volunteer, the detail was turning out to be a memorable one. I found I liked working the low desert, a stark opposite of the green and temperate Port Angeles. This was what I had in mind so long ago when I first applied for the job, but knew nothing about it. Desert, sand, cactus, solitude; classic Patrol. But all good things must end. Another muster, where I was getting used to the Supes like Espie and Gonzo hurling assigned vehicle keys fastball straight at your head to make sure you were alert and ready to rock. They read the latest hotboard news like they always did and my heart dropped. Scott Panchison, Blaine Sector Pilot, had been killed in a crash while responding to a sensor. Scott was close to retirement and looking forward to a full-time rural life with his family. He gave much to his country, having flown F-4 Phantoms from a carrier in Vietnam. He gave us all he had. I left the detail early to pay my respects to Scott's family and friends at his service. When I got back, the Sector was still in shock. We all knew this stuff happens, but not to one of our own. I won't forget that desert detail, just as I won't forget Scott. Rudy Ruiz and Ray Ortega are also gone from this earth, but not memory. They both retired, one south and one north, and what I wouldn't give to hear just one more of their endless, ludicrous, magnificent stories. Rest in Peace my Brothers, we'll all see you further on up the trail.
The El Centro Initiative was part of a long-term strategy to gain border control by focusing resources on overwhelmed high-traffic Sectors. Spawned In El Paso, the plan next moved to San Diego while I was there and it indeed made an impact. Detailed manpower was heavily applied, along with new fences and drive-through barriers that pushed the smuggling cartels into much more challenging terrain. Now the hot spot was the low desert badlands of the Imperial Valley. Manpower was easiest to immediately apply, but it also brought inherent resource management challenges. The shift Supes bore the brunt. Besides the usual hectic scheduling and oversight, they had to contend with a constant rotation of agents unfamiliar to the jobsite intricacies. Vehicles were always in short supply anyway, and more bodies accelerated that shortfall. Then you had the Junior Journeymen, many on their first detail, who used their time off like they were on a wild weekend bacchanal in Vegas. Getting drunk or disorderly at the local gin mills on both sides of the line, and generally doing stupid shit like picking up rattlers by the tail and getting snakebit kept the Supes quite busy. By the time I arrived, they had been over-saturated and taxed to their limits by the extra help, with little patience for detailers.
Day one, swing shift, and I was assigned to the 111 Checkpoint. The Senior Journeyman was grumpy right out of the gate, and it looked to be a long weary shift. Then the Desert Spirit smiled upon me. A weathered and jovial agent arrived at the checkpoint and presently introduced himself. "Hey Bro, I'm Rudy Ruiz from Indio, but they all call me the Rude Dawg". Rude personified that rare and magnetic character that drew you into his plans and possibilities; the kind of person you instinctively wanted to be around just to see what happened next. Rude outranked the grouchy Senior Journeyman, and nobody groused when he announced that he and the Detailer were going to check that magnetic sensor. I gratefully climbed aboard his 4x4 and off we went. Rude told me he heard the sensor hit on his drive down from Indio, and figured we might intercept the vehicle that set it off. We headed east into the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range responding to a sensor hit over 30 miles distant. As we drove along the Coachella Canal, Rude lamented that we didn't have time for him to stop at Siphon 16 to check his trot line. He noticed my quizzical look and patted the huge cooler between us, which I assumed carried water and maybe his lunch. "On a good day, I fill this thing with catfish". As we motored on through a desolate mountain pass, Rude said that it was early for loaders, and the sensor might turn out to be scrappers. "What's that"? Rude related that the gunnery range was littered with aluminum bomb racks and large caliber spent brass, gold to the local desert guerrilla recyclers and meth addicts. They sneaked around just like the smugglers trying to avoid military police and the Patrol as they plundered the illicit booty of endless wargames. Sometimes their prizes exploded on them, but that risk was apparently worth their reward.
As we dropped into a valley and onto a miles-long washboard straightaway, I noticed, or more accurately felt, a roar that topped the clamorous racket inside the 4x4's cabin. Instantly, I saw the shadow and twin tail feathers of an F-18, lower to the deck than any jet I had ever seen before flying straight overhead. Rude was just laughing as my jaw dropped. The jet broke left and was gone in seconds, and if I was riding solo, I would have doubted what I just witnessed. After I regained composure, Rude said that the fly-boys did that all the time. They would line up for a mock gun run on Patrol Units traversing the desert, even using the 111 Checkpoint as an aiming point during night shifts. Sometimes, it wasn't the Patrol driving in the restricted military zone, and I can only ponder at what some smuggler thought when they were the target of a low jet pass. Rude said the agents and pilots would all laugh about it after shift when they enjoyed refreshments and war stories at the local watering hole. Damn. When I got back north, I'd have to ask Scott if he ever buzzed La Migra when he trained here as a young Marine pilot. We finally arrived at a crossroads and parked behind some rocks for a time, but the potential load vehicle never showed. Rude speculated the jets spooked our quarry, or they took an alternate route to I-10. He had no intention to return to checkpoint duty, and asked if I wanted to go sightseeing. Heck yes!
Rude said "wanna go to the hot springs and scope some naked ladies"? How do you answer a question like that? He found a road that took us under I-5 east of Holtville where the All-American Canal ran. The place was strewn with trash and didn't strike me as a tourist hot spot, but we spied a lone parked rented camper. "Jackpot" said Rude, and we disembarked the 4x4. As I was picking my way through the debris field, I heard Rude shouting out up ahead of me on the reedy trail. "Hey, hola...wie gehts". Rude indeed found some skinny-dippers at the springs, the waters of which didn't look too healthy, and stank fouler than stale urine. It wasn't what I had pictured when he mentioned "naked ladies". Rude was happily chatting up a pair of very overweight and elderly German tourists, even doing an honor-system immigration inspection, since they quite obviously were not carrying their passports. I told Rude I'd seen enough full frontal nudity thank you, so we continued west to other desert oddities. We hit Slab City and I gawked at Salvation Mountain, a huge mound of debris garishly painted over in neon biblical quotes. At each stop, Rude made it a point to chat up the locals. Most of these folks lived on the fringe of society and the conversation was entertaining. Something different about desert dwellers. This was turning out to be a first-class junket complete with backstage pass. When Rude dropped me off at the end of shift, he said we would resume the tour tomorrow.
The next day I was assigned to the Highway 86 Checkpoint, and Rude was already there waiting for me. We drove west into the desert as seasonal winds kicked up a dust storm that tanned the atmosphere. Brown snot soon soiled my bandana, just like working in the steel mill. Rude took me to a parched location called China Camp, a relic of the Steam Age when America was connecting the country by rail and importing Chinese to do the work. All that remained of the camp was some tilted telegraph poles and scattered junk. I could not imagine working here in the dust and oven-like heat without an air-conditioned 4x4. Rude told me there were miles of old unused rail in this part of the desert, and he once encountered a couple guys taking a moonlight ride on a restored handcar. These small, two-person cars are powered by pumping a bar up and down, and the hobbyists fitted a pickup truck with a winch to put the heavy handcar on the tracks for what must be a wondrous, if illegal, desert cruise. He next took me to the escarpment of the Anza-Borrego and we walked a barren landscape to a tiny oasis hidden in the rocks. It was a lay-up spot that, based on the amount of alien trash, was heavily used by border crossers. As we drove on, we came across fresh vehicle tracks that sparked Rude's curiosity. Following them, we soon found an SUV buried axle deep in the sand. It was a couple San Diego yuppies who were sitting miserably inside the baking vehicle. They had gotten stuck earlier in the day and with no cell phone coverage, they expected to spend the night. Rude deflated their tires to 20psi and used his shovel to helped them out of their fix. We gave them water and directions to a gas station to refill their tires. Good thing for them we happened to be sightseeing. A seismic sensor banged off near the Desert Tower, not too far away so we responded. I had visited the stone tower when I was stationed in San Diego, a spectacular motorcycle ride through gigantic boulder mountains. I never imagined working aliens there, but here I was. We tracked and sacked up a group hiding in a drainage culvert under I-8 and drove to Ocotillo to meet transport.
It was getting close to sunset, and Rude offered to take me to some firehouse grill where PA's liked to eat. En route, we heard dispatch advise that a civilian reported a group walking through Salton City. Rude cocked an eyebrow and asked me if I had ever been there. "No, but lunch can wait, let's go". He smiled and said "you're gonna love this place". Salton City was planned in the 60's as the next big California resort community. That dream never matured, and we were cruising into a dead town on a dead salt sea. It was getting on dark, and the dusty wind was blowing tumble weeds down deserted avenues. I felt like we just drove onto the set of Mad Max with street upon lifeless street of unfinished houses and ramshackle huts. Most homes were well buttoned up, dull flickering candles or lanterns as the prime light source. We saw not a soul in our slow cruise through town. Nobody even peeked out from the dirty windows. Rude said that less than 1000 lived there, but where were they? We drove to the edge of the Salton Sea and got out. Even with the wind, a putrid stench hung heavy in the air as we walked the silent street. Finally, we spotted some life. A woman wearing a long pink dress was standing on the porch of a plywood shack. She appeared alluring at a distance, long black hair and dress blowing with the increasing wind. She grabbed a cane and shambled over to greet us and I noticed she was missing a leg. As she got closer, I noticed she also sported a perfectly groomed mustache that didn't quite fit in with her blackened mouthful of methed-up teeth. I let Rude query her, and walked in the opposite direction towards a man sitting on a board lain across a five gallon bucket by the seashore. He had a pole and was ostensibly fishing in the stagnant waters. I reckoned I had some kinship with fishermen, so I strolled up and said hello. The leathery-faced old-timer instantly got wide-eyed and twitchy with me. He too was minus a limb, one sleeve of his shirt pinned empty to his chest. I tried to calm him and asked what he was fishing for. He jumped up from his seat and showed me his catch, unrecognizable yellowish mutants that looked like they had been dead quite awhile. I got no decipherable information from the disheveled fisherman and moved on. Decay and ruin on every street. This neighborhood was straight out of an end times story. We left minus apprehensions, and I wondered what local curse may have claimed the limbs of those living too close to that acrid sea. If you ever want to see what it looks like after Armageddon, visit Salton City.
By the time we left Salty City, the grill was closed so we made do with jerky and chicharrones from the gas station. "Let's go to the Grassy Knoll and pop a load". We sped off to a knoll totally devoid of grass to monitor Highway S2, a backdoor route to San Diego. It wasn't long before we spotted a target. A white van pulled to the shoulder and went dark. A driver and passenger got out. Presently, we observed two muted flashlights bobbing in the creosote. These had to be the most inept smugglers I'd ever seen. We finally lost patience and blasted down on our quarry. We lit up two skinny white boys with deer in the headlight eyes. They obviously were not smuggling dope or folks, and when Rude asked what was in their big Styrofoam cooler, they broke. They had driven out from Lakeside to collect lizards to sell to their local pet shops. Rude inspected their catch and reminded the entrepreneurs about Fish and Game, who would be happy to heavily fine them and seize their van. He told them to get outta Dodge, pronto, but let them keep their catch. Border Justice Rude Dawg style.
The remainder of my detail after Rude's orientation tour was just as memorable. It turned out that the Shift Commander, FOS John Bryant, had put in for a job with Blaine Sector Anti-Smuggling. Once he realized I hailed from there, he picked my brain about the amenities there. In return I got better assignments. They told me I was the first agent to be assigned an "X", a deterrent position where I was not to move from during the shift. It was at Gordon's Well, a location where the first wooden plank road crossed the desert sands in the early 1900's. They assigned me a trainee, and I shared some tips on four-wheeling. We drove to the top of a steep sand dune, where I broke out a newspaper and he studied for his probationary exam while awaiting nightfall. Pretty soon, a Supe called on the radio and candidly said "Y'all look pretty sitting up there reading that paper, don't get stuck coming down off the hill". I noticed the Supe was glassing us from across the canal, but I was in my assigned area and didn't fret. The trainee was nervous though, and said that Supe was a real hardass. Eventually I low-geared off the dune to drive over to the Supe's position. He turned out to be a swell guy once he realized, unlike many of his current junior detailers, I knew what I was doing. I think his name was Don, and he had been a teacher prior to the Patrol. He was close to retirement and had recently survived a bout with prostate cancer. His biggest gripe was that he had to wear adult diapers as a result of his surgery, and he put the word out that if he were shot, he wanted his troops to strip him of that diaper before the medics got to him. He had good reason for concern. A few shifts prior he had responded to a drive-through sensor due south of Gordon's Well. He intercepted a pickup loaded with weed being followed by two Mexican police vehicles. The Mexican cops said they were pursuing the smuggler and didn't realize they crossed the line. Knowing full well that the cops were running interference for the cartel, the Supe graciously thanked them and advised they should get back south before backup showed. The Supe also knew he literally dodged a bullet, being alone and outnumbered as he was.
One day after muster, I heard a familiar voice in the hallway. It was my old PAIC, now Deputy Chief Ray Ortega. We caught up for a few minutes and he said "let's take a ride". A Ray Ride is what we called it; his trademark. He hated managing from a desk and relished nothing more than hitting the field and making the rounds. "You find out all kinds of stuff just taking a ride" he once told me. I had been his chauffeur many times at CHU. Now he enlisted SBPA John Garvey, another San Diego alumni, as his driver and off we went on a tour of Calexico. As we drove along the All-American Canal, Ray talked about ideas for preventing drowning deaths that regularly occurred there. He mentioned an agent, I think his name was Gary, who had survived going through a drop, a type of dam where the water falls through a tube. Over a fine Mexican lunch, Ray said he was considering a move to Spokane. I reminded him about how he once chastised me for going north; "Strauch, don't you have the weather channel? It's always raining up there". Now Ray just laughed and said "yea, but they have skiing in Spokane".
For being a reluctant volunteer, the detail was turning out to be a memorable one. I found I liked working the low desert, a stark opposite of the green and temperate Port Angeles. This was what I had in mind so long ago when I first applied for the job, but knew nothing about it. Desert, sand, cactus, solitude; classic Patrol. But all good things must end. Another muster, where I was getting used to the Supes like Espie and Gonzo hurling assigned vehicle keys fastball straight at your head to make sure you were alert and ready to rock. They read the latest hotboard news like they always did and my heart dropped. Scott Panchison, Blaine Sector Pilot, had been killed in a crash while responding to a sensor. Scott was close to retirement and looking forward to a full-time rural life with his family. He gave much to his country, having flown F-4 Phantoms from a carrier in Vietnam. He gave us all he had. I left the detail early to pay my respects to Scott's family and friends at his service. When I got back, the Sector was still in shock. We all knew this stuff happens, but not to one of our own. I won't forget that desert detail, just as I won't forget Scott. Rudy Ruiz and Ray Ortega are also gone from this earth, but not memory. They both retired, one south and one north, and what I wouldn't give to hear just one more of their endless, ludicrous, magnificent stories. Rest in Peace my Brothers, we'll all see you further on up the trail.
Tales from the Desert
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