The Coyote's Bicycle by Kimball Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

the ranch in the early morning. And he followed any writhing tire tracks he found, often into the bush. After fifty years of steady migration through the valley, the footpaths off the road were obvious. Terry would walk them as far as they went, about to the water’s edge, and that’s where he’d find the bikes.
    â€œTen here, fifteen there—day after day after day. It seemed like each group had a scout with ’em. Sometimes I’d just watch ’em hightail it down the road. Then I’d go find the bikes.”
    Once, while driving the ranch four-wheeler, Terry came upon a man he’d never seen before. The man was pushing a bicycle and he waved. Terry stopped. “The bici , it has a bad wheel,” the man complained in broken English. He pointed at the rear tire. It was as flat as a run-down snake.
    â€œGive me a ride on back?” the man asked, indicating the quad.
    â€œNo way, José,” Terry said.
    Despairing, the migrant dropped the bike and walked off into the trees. “So I grabbed it,” Terry said, nodding.
    Knowing his affinity for the bicycles, BP officers he’d become acquainted with might stop by the ranch or flag Terry on the road to tell him the location of a new stash. Once, he drove up on an agent who was waiting on foot with a detainee. Terry said he stopped his truck and waved, and the agent “actually grabbed the bike and put it in the back of my truck for me.”
    â€œPull over here,” Terry said. McCue parked in a random spot on a ranch road. To our left rose the border highlands; unseen but straight ahead lay the Pacific. Hidden somewhere beyond the greenery to our right was the river. We got out and hiked over a berm.
    â€œThere were some points in time where some really nice bikes were being left,” Terry said fondly, as he led us across a clearing and toward what looked like a wall of brambles. Only up close was it possible to see a thin footpath like a crevice in a cliff face. On this path, Terry said, he once stumbled upon three young women and four men, their bikes lying in the dirt and against trees. They’d been forced to break off from their group and were now without a guide. Terry found them huddled as if making a new plan. One of the men spoke some English. On seeing Terry, he asked, “What way do we go?”
    The rancher gave them directions to Imperial Beach as best he could. “Then I went back and called Border Patrol,” he said as we walked. “Well, maybe I didn’t that time, but I have in the past.”
    Terry didn’t care about the illegal crossing. It was obvious what interested him lay right there on the ground.
    We entered onto the path between the trees and just a few yards in, Terry stopped and swept a leafy branch to the side. There was one beach cruiser and one mountain bike—only two bikes, not three as he’d remembered. These days Terry wasn’t the only collector in thevalley. One of the neighbors must have come along, probably planning to return with a truck for the other two, as we had. Despite the thousand or so piled back at the ranch, you could see the sting of the missing one cross his brow. Terry Tynan had become as transfixed as a beachcomber by the various multicolored and useful items. Other than a passing interest in the small profit they brought at the swap meet, I don’t think even he knew why he wanted them so much. But there they were, new and different every day.

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    Within days of Pablo’s arrival in Tijuana in late 2005, the Oaxacan developed a habit of wandering along the fence line that climbed and dipped through the mesas and canyons west of the city center. The paths along the border were chalky and hot, and the car-tire soles of his huaraches would have slipped easily on the loose sand. Aside from the low brush and the occasional cactus, the hilltops were barren. The rusty border fence was an eel’s fin writhing into the