In the summer it’s best to take off just before light, when the morning sun colors the dew-soaked brush orange and the long shadows draw out the sign: the footprints in the soil. The air has yet to become baked, and it still smells clean; the prevailing southeast wind hasn’t blown the smog up from the industrial cities of Monterrey and Saltillo.
In February you don’t need to worry about the heat; you just enjoy the long lines of the shadows from the sun low on the horizon. As a pilot, most of the time I don’t need to call the brush crew because they start their shift earlier, in the dark at 5 a.m. They’ll slowly drive the dirt roads and ranches paralleling the Rio Grande looking for footprints. Once they’ve finished “cutting” (looking on the roads for signs) their designated section, they’ll decide which group of people trying to cross the border they’re going to chase. The choices will be many: large groups, small groups, old groups (the sign looks wind-blown), and fresh groups.
So by the time I am airborne and have contacted the radio operator, the sign cutters are waiting for me. One agent and his partner will have a group of 20 on the Briscoe Ranch. Another agent and his partner will have two groups in the middle, one group of 12 and another of eight, but the group of eight is “smoking” (have really fresh tracks) and the agents feel that they could have it wrapped up in an hour if I could give them air support. A single agent working the Piloncillo has two groups walking Highway 83. Then a few more agents call from the lower. There are three groups of 10, but they don’t look too fresh.
This is any other day for border patrol agents in Laredo, Texas. You will probably lose more than you catch, and as a pilot, I’ll have to decide how to line up these groups in importance. Without exception, the agents on the smaller groups will tell me to go work the larger ones first and then, after those are caught and if there is enough fuel and daylight, they’ll ask me to come back and help them with their smaller groups.
I decide to fly north to the Briscoe for the group of 20. I fly low, slightly above the tops of the brush. Along the way I cut the sign of two more groups crossing just south of the Apache fence line. Their sign completely covers the trails on which they walk. I bring the helicopter into a low hover over the sign, downwind of the trail, so as not to blow the sign away with the rotor wash. I’m looking for anything that will stand out, any design in the sole of the print, something that sets it apart, something unusual: an arrow in one of the prints, a bulls-eye within an oval, three chevrons. I turn the helicopter quickly around and fly the trail north-northeast. The Apache fence line travels northeast. It’s a natural line for this particular area in the northern end of the Laredo sector. After making a dog-leg to the east at the Dos Hermanos (hills), eventually the Apache bumps in Highway 83 very near County Line Road. I break off from this group and continue flying up to the Briscoe. I let the sign cutters know what I have found. We may come across this group later in the day.
All of what I have just described, from where the border patrol sign cutters make their first cut along the Rio Grande to the Briscoe Ranch, the Apache fence and all the way out to Highway 83 is, by any standard, out in the middle of nowhere. It’s tough work: There are scorpions, blister bugs, and rattlesnakes. Every tree, brush, or cactus is packed with thorns. Sign cutters generally have cut-up forearms and torn uniforms, and in the evenings before taking a shower, they carefully pluck out cactus needles from their shins and thighs as they search for embedded ticks. In the night the only light available is what trickles down from the moon and stars. The Briscoe is over 100,000 acres. There are no signs or directions, and roads are almost never straight. Ranches are learned and explained by (agent nick-named) fence lines, windmills, tanks, and roads. Nothing is ever posted on a ranch.
