THE BLUE STALKER (2 page)

             
Phil was accepted to a university on the east coast and Ella stayed near home attending a local university up north.  Life put Phil and Ella on different paths.  Phil and Ella exchanged phones calls weekly for the first few months while away at college but soon the calls were farther apart and soon they decided they would break off the relationship and be friends.  Ella didn’t want to break up with Phil but it was Phil’s idea and she felt he had someone else.

             
After graduation she moved to the city looking to carve out a new life. She worked for a couple of corporations but couldn’t find happiness.

             
Ella heard Phil married his college sweetheart. Her hopes of them being together again seem impossible.
How foolish for me to think we would someday cross paths.
Ella thought.

             
Ella and Frank Smith worked in the same office.  They dated a few months and were soon married.  Ella thought this would fill the void in her life. She cared for Frank and the sexual chemistry was there but her love for Phil Young dwelled deep in her bosom. Ella realized it was not fair to Frank to live this lie.  Frank loved Ella and understood her feelings and they parted as good friends.

ONE

             
Soon after Ella moved to Coopersville she met with Mark Brandon.  She needed some insight on the goings on in town and Mark was just the man to feed her information.  Mark’s family settled Coopersville back in the 1800’s.  Grandpa Cooper soon passed away and Grandma married a Brandon.  As years passed the Brandon family bought up most of the town.  Some say they stole the town building by building, acre by acre paying only a penance for it.

             
Mark’s store front building on Main Street was recently vacated.  It was a perfect location with its plate glass floor to ceiling windows facing the north would be good for displaying beautiful flowers and the gift items Ella would be selling in her shop.  He offered to lease it to Ella for a song.  Ella being a business woman and not wanting to be owned by anyone insisted on paying the going rate.  She didn’t want to owe any man a favor or anyone for that matter.  She would pay her way.

             
Mark obliged and within a month Ella was cleaning and painting the store.  The previous tenants were secondhand clothing dealers and the place smelled of sweaty clothes and old soiled leather shoes.  She wondered why anyone would want to sell old secondhand clothes and why did they close up shop?  Oh well, to each their own and she went on with her scrubbing.  This is one of the times Ella thinks a husband might come in handy.  Oh well, she’ll make it on her own for now anyway.

             
Ella was working late one evening cleaning the store in preparation to open the flower shop when someone began rapping at the storefront door. Water splashed from the bucket as she dropped the sponge, switched off the lamp and made her way stepping over boxes to the front door.  She lifted the corner of the shade trying to see who was frantically rapping at the door. She was hesitant to open the door but the man continued to knock and beg with a south of the border accent for someone to let him in. Ella pulled the shade back and looked past his shoulder, the moon cast a light on a small woman with dark hair to her waist bouncing a squirming crying baby in her arms.

             
Ella’s body was shaking with fright. She didn’t know whether to open the door or ignore the young family. She rushed to where she had left her hand bag on the floor and retrieved a hand gun her dad had given her years ago.  With her arm straight to her side, she hid the gun behind her leg.

             
“Who’s there? What do you want?”  She yelled at the man.

             
“We need to hide. We are escaping from the Coyotes.

             
With Ella’s hand on the door against her better judgment she unlocked and opened the door and stepped back.

The young family immediately rushed past her and huddled in the corner. 

             
“Why are you knocking at my door? I‘m going to call the Sheriff.”

             
“Senorita, please don’t call we are hiding from the Coyotes.”

             
“Who are you hiding from, who?” Ella asked locking the door behind her.

             
“The men in the van, the Coyotes, they will take us to the drop-house and keep us locked up until our family sends money for our release. Our family doesn’t have money. We are poor looking for work in the fields.”  The young Mexican man told Ella.

             
“Where is Paul and Nellie? They always hide our people and help us make our way to the San Joaquin Valley where we can work and make money to care for our family.”

             
“Sir, they are not here, I’m the new owner of this store. The town folk are talking about the storekeepers vanishing in the night. They must be who you are looking for. I don’t have any knowledge of them or of them hiding your people.

             
“No, no, they did not move, they would not move leaving us without a place to hide.” Juan cried out. “Can you hide us for the night?  We will leave tomorrow at sun break.  We can not travel any further tonight with the baby, my wife is not strong.  We have been walking for the better part of the night.”

             
“Where will you go tomorrow?”  Ella inquired.

             
“There’s a truck that travels through twice a week picking up farm workers.  There are farmers over in the valley in need of workers. They make a way for workers to get from Coopersville to the valley.  Men, human smugglers, Coyotes as they are known bring our people here charging a fee.  The farmer sends a truck over twice a week to pick up worker’s taking them to the farm.” Juan continued on as Ella listened intently.

             
“This is our first time to come up from our country to look for work.  We were told there is plenty work for everyone. We are starving in our country. We only want to make a better life for our people.  We have traveled many days in the back of a van. It was so crowded we struggled for every breath. I heard the men in the front of the van talking about taking us to a drop-house. They would demand money from our family in Mexico for our release. I knew I had to get my wife and baby away from the Coyotes. We made our way to the vans back door. When the van slowed to maneuver around a herd of cows we jumped from the back of the van and ran for our life through the desert. When we left home we were told by friends to go to Coopersville and look up Paul and Nellie at the secondhand store on Main Street if we needed a place to stay before catching the farmers truck to the valley.”

             
The Mexican man spilled his guts in an effort to plead for help from a woman that knew nothing about Coyotes and people hiding people or people smuggling people.

             
Ella placed the gun in her handbag and looked at the desperate young family. 

             
“You can stay until daybreak, and then you must be gone. I don’t understand any of this.”

             
“Gracious, senorita gracious. We won’t be any trouble to you.”  Juan said thankfully as he wrapped his arms around his family pulling them near his side.

             
Ella put her long coat on, wrapped a scarf around her neck and put a sock cap on to keep the chill of the night away. She threw her handbag strap over her shoulder, adjusted it on her shoulder and looked back at the family.

             
“You are outta here first thing in the morning you hear me?”  Ella reiterated as she turned the knob on the door. Ella stopped in her tracks for a moment turned and looked back at the three huddled in the corner.

             
“Are you hungry?”

             
“Yes, senorita we are very hungry but there will be food on the truck for us tomorrow. The baby can nurse his momma if she still has milk in her breasts.” Juan said as he looked at his hungry family.

             
“You lock the door behind me and I will be right back.”  Ella ordered as she made her way out the door.

             
Ella raced to Joe’s Coffee House and picked up food for the starving three.  At the last minute she remembered to get milk for the baby. She pulled her sock hat down around her face in a last minute effort to disguise herself. She didn’t want anyone to wonder why she was out late buying so much food. She rushed back to the storefront keeping an eye out for the van. She filled her arms with bags of food, shut the car door looking from side to side she made her way up the steps to the door and rapped loudly.  The Mexican man cautiously opened the door. Ella handed him the bags of food and the carton of milk. 

             
“Gracious, Gracious!”

             
Juan took the milk from the bag and kissed the carton.  As he opened the carton of milk he asked, “Do you have any way I can warm the milk for the baby’s bottle?” 

             
“Yes, there’s a hotplate in the back room.”  Ella replied as she hurried to the back room fetching the hotplate all the time hoping the coil wasn’t bad. 

“It was left behind by Paul and Nellie.”  Ella said as she crossed her fingers the coil would turn red.

             
Juan found an empty can and washed it before pouring the milk and placed it on the burner.  It took a moment for the coil to turn red. As soon as the milk was warm he filled the bottle with the warm milk, shook a few drops on his forearm to make sure it wasn’t too warm for the baby. The baby wrapped his hands around the warm bottle and began nursing and gooing causing the milk to run down its little chin. Maria, his wife opened the bag unwrapping the food Ella generously provided for them. The young family gobbled down the food but not before bowing their heads to give thanks for the food He had provided them through a stranger. 

             
How would they ever be able to repay her? The thought was going through Juan’s mind.

             
Ella found some old blankets in the back room.  She shook them out to rid them of spiders since they had probably been stuffed away for some time.

             
“Here” Ella said, “take these blankets they will keep you warm tonight. You be gone first break of the day like you promised. I could be in trouble for harboring you.”

             
“
We will senorita you have my word.” He replied. 

             
Ella downed her coat, wrapped the scarf around her neck and pulled the sock hat over her ears as she rummaged through her purse for her keys.

             
“This place doesn’t have any heat you will have to keep each other warm tonight.”  She cautioned.  As she reached the door she looked back at the three people huddled in a corner wrapped in old blankets on a journey to a better life.

             
Juan Hernandez slept with one eye open during the remainder of the night. Afraid the Coyotes might know of the place he was hiding with his family.  Friends back in his homeland told him the secondhand store was a place of refuge.  He only knew Paul and Nellie were not at the store as he had been told.  A strange lady answered their plea at the door and let them in from the cold of the night.  Was she an angel or would she call the authorities or could she possibly know the Coyotes?  Juan had no way of knowing but the one thing he knew he had shelter for his family for the night.  The three of them cuddled closely as he looked over his wife’s shoulder at his beautiful innocent baby boy.  He knew he must protect both from the evils of this world.  Juan crossed his chest and closed his eyes leaving their safety for the night in God’s hands.

             
Just before daybreak little Jose started to squirm rubbing his eyes and sucking on his thumb.  His diaper was soiled. They had only one change for him. Some way they must find a way to wash out the soiled diaper and get it dry for the next changing.  Maria rose to the occasion. She changed Jose and took the soiled diaper to the bathroom to wash it out.  She put it in the plastic from last night’s dinner and tucked it in her coat.

             
“I will dry it when we get on the truck. I can hold in the wind and let it dry as we travel to our work place.” Maria assured Juan.