He’d tried to fight her, and she’d knocked him out, then bought him a meal, and after he’d eaten enough to kill a horse, she had insisted he take her to meet his parents, which had turned out to be parent, singular. He’d been the oldest of five living out of a roughshod two-room home that more resembled a shack than a house. She’d left a month’s worth of grocery money with his mother, conversing in Spanish, which she’d once spoken more fluently than English, and then hired the kid on as her eyes and ears.

It’d been nearly a year since she’d last seen him, a lifetime for a teenage hustler. She hadn’t known if he’d still be around, or alive. He’d rolled up to his mother’s place at noon, six inches taller than she remembered, pants too short, shoes too small, wary of Holden like a jealous lover facing competition, and she hadn’t known whether to hug him or feed him and had ended up doing both.

Her route would be the same with or without him, but tracking him down had saved her the extra time she’d have needed to go it alone, and had avoided the risk of bringing on someone new.

He settled the kayak broadside against the bank and held it steady against the current. She watched the camera, seconds ticking down inside her head.

Holden boarded.

She tossed him her rucksack and two push poles, handed the remote off to José Luis, clipped a carabiner onto a custom ring at the kayak’s tail, double-checked that the line was secure, clipped the line to José Luis’s belt, and monkey crawled onto the craft.

Push poles to muddy bottom, she and Holden guided the kayak across, working in tandem, moving three times faster than when she made the crossing alone.

A couple minutes, maybe less, that’s all it took.

Behind them, José Luis, eyes in the sky, watched the road.

They reached the northern bank.

José Luis chirped, alerting them to border patrol approach.

Jill slid from kayak to United States soil, held the craft in place while Holden tossed their belongings off and scurried for land, and she secured the poles to it and let the boat go. The kayak drifted off, nearly the same color as the water, difficult to see in the lowering dusk, and she and Holden lay flat in the foliage, hidden by grasses, silent, killing time in the wait for the all clear.

An engine approached. Wheels against dirt and gravel rolled slowly past.

Another couple minutes ticked by.

José Luis chirped again.