“I can see that.”

“My wife likes a clean car. And a clean house. And a clean husband.”

The ride took us back along the river the way I had come. The afternoon had become hot and uncomfortable, but the lieutenant appeared unfazed in his buttoned-up shirt and tie. He turned left and we gained some elevation as we rolled into an industrial area that had seen busier times. He stopped the car and we got out. I followed him past a loading dock of some long-defunct business into a yard of discarded metal and mounds of baked hard earth. We stood above a subdivision of modest homes, mostly one-story affairs with postage-stamp lawns. Across the river were the high-rise buildings of El Paso.

“This is where we found the bodies of eight women,” Deocampo said. He kicked at the dirt with his shiny shoes. “This is the reality we deal with every day. I don’t know if my phone is going to ring and I’ll have to go out and find a body. Families come in every week with stories and photos. I don’t have time to check out the leads I get here, much less think about things across the border. There was a head right where your foot is.”

I looked down and stepped aside.

He looked over at the reasonably safe city of El Paso. It looked like Oz.

“What could you do if I brought Rosalita Gonzalez here to you?”

“Mr. Wells, go home to California. Make a report to the police in New Mexico, then go home to your daughter.”

On the way back to headquarters, Deocampo took us on a detour, stopped the car downtown on Avenue 16 de Septiembre.

“Why are we stopped here?” I asked.

He pointed at a large three-story building. “See that?”

I looked at the building.

“The first two floors are a whorehouse.”

“Thank you, but I’m good.”

“On the third floor is the cartel, their offices.”

“Like a drug cartel?”

“Exactly, a drug cartel.” He put a cigarette in his mouth but did not light it. “That’s what we deal with down here. The cartel has offices. You have a war on drugs, and we get shot. It is a mess. In Ciudad Juárez women are hunted. It didn’t used to be like this. Maybe one day it will not be like this again.”

“I’m sorry.”

Deocampo shrugged. “Go home. You cannot save anybody. I cannot save anybody. Go home to your family.”

a pocketknife, a tarp, a map, a compass, a shovel, a canteen, a poncho, a trail, a mission

Camaïeu

I drove home to my daughter.