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Page 75
The question, spoken in a soft and plaintive voice, came from a woman behind Karmann. In the darkness it was not possible to see her clearly, but she was carrying a child in her rebozo, using the garment to wrap her burden against the lash of the wind and rain.
She asked again, in a thin and weary voice: "Countryman, when shall we arrive at the border?" She must not have realized that she was speaking to El Gancho, whom all but the children avoided.
"Soon now, madrecita," he said as gently as he could manage. But the cold and the long months of travel on foot had roughened his voice, and his accent made it threatening.
"I can carry the young one if you are tired," he said.
"No. No. 'stoy bien. 'stoy bien." She had recognized him and recoiled in alarm. She made a small sign of the cross on her forehead, between the wings of wet-black hair, and dropped back, putting another woman and two men between herself and the odd foreigner, who was touched by the devil and in whose eyes an angry flame burned.
Karmann slogged on. The path ran between two fallow cotton fields. From time to time a flash of distant lightning illuminated the land. It was as flat as a steppe, fading into distant darkness as the flashes died.
Now it seemed to Karmann that he could hear the sound of swiftly running water. The Rio Grande? Was it a fast-flowing stream, then? He had imagined it a stagnant waterway running between concreted banks. But perhaps that was only in summer. Back in Matamoros, a man had said that there were flash floods in the Rio Grande at this time of year. Could it be true? Karmann had forgotten how to be afraid.
The sound of the river deepened. The Mexicans grew uneasy as they approached it. The ground underfoot was mostly sand. It drank the rain as though the earth were thirsty. A distant light penetrated the darkness, and the line buckled and coiled as those in front slowed, stopped.
Karmann heard the hoarse whisper of the coyote telling

 
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