The Coyote's Bicycle (15 page)

Unfortunately, this was not an unexpected response for the period. California's final lynching was still a number of years off. The intent and implications of that angry
comandancia
gathering were understood by everyone. Chants for justice rang up into the interrogation room. Confronted with the uniform and the noise outside, Morales reversed his denials and made a full confession. It might have been a calculated decision to buy time. A trial might have afforded him the opportunity to recant and spare himself a lynching. The mob set the
comandancia
aflame anyway. The authorities weren't waiting around. Within less than three days of Olga's discovery, Soldado was put on trial behind closed doors. He was quickly convicted and sentenced to death—to a rare
ley fuga
, a military execution in which the convict is commanded to run for his life before being gunned down.

The singular piece of evidence—the uniform bloodied either by a messy sack of rabbit skins or by murder—never entered the transcripts of the closed court martial, nor was it saved for posterity, if it ever existed. Further evidence implicating Soldado was never unearthed. Over time, in the minds of the people, that deficit of facts—as well as the speed of the trial, the weak position of the outpost government, the civil unrest, and the strength of the crowd—never fully exonerated Morales, but helped to build a different kind of case for a handsome young man with no one but God in his corner. All of the elements worked toward a confluence of narrative and belief that would have led to conspiracy theory in the United
States but, in Mexico, led to sainthood. As Vanderwood wrote, “Some believed (as many do today) that those who die unjustly sit closest to God. Therefore, they have the ear of the Lord and are especially effective as intercessors.”

Henke said she'd returned to Tijuana from New York City in the 1980s—her shot at something bigger had detoured into single motherhood and a situation tipping toward destitution—when she first came to Juan Soldado's grave with a request for a miracle. She needed rent money. And kneeling in his mausoleum she spoke to Soldado, as many do, as though she just couldn't be sure if the heinous charges of rape and murder set against him were true or not, and that if he could see his way clear to granting her miracle, surely she would believe he'd been framed those seventy-odd years ago, framed and shot as he ran, his body then dragged to a shallow grave on that spot. As she kneeled in the sepulcher, Henke said, at the very outer rim of her right earlobe she felt the warm breath and grazing lips of the young soldier—a presence just beyond view. A man's voice said, “I will grant your wish, and then you will believe I am innocent.”

As she offered this point, Henke's lips smacked—a period on a statement of fact. We were all free to believe or not. Atop the shrine's steps, behind her the cave-like edifice holding more images of Soldado, Henke conjured a time from her youth when she'd been in dire need, she'd made a petition to the spirit of a disgraced soldier, and then there, days later in the bathroom of a San Diego nightclub, she nearly stumbled over a wad of dollars lying on the floor, the exact sum she'd required.

As we made our way back down through the graveyard, the clouds breaking up and sunlight sputtering through, Henke pointed toward a cleft in a hillock near the rust-brown US border fence. She said that a number of years after Soldado's burial, a group of migrants had huddled there waiting to cross into the United States. On the
advice of a local, they hiked up to the gravesite to petition Soldado for success in their crossing, and for a blessing of their travels. Ever since, the intercessor's legend had grown among migrant communities far and wide.

It was often repeated, however, that for one who petitioned by the grave and was granted a miracle but did not make the return pilgrimage to the shrine on his knees, Soldado himself would knock ever so late at night on the petitioner's door—wherever it might be. I imagined that Soldado must make a lot of trips into the United States, himself. Maybe we had crossed paths, at a Waffle House in Alabama possibly, or a Church's Chicken in Kentucky. A member of our party, a man in a red beanie, asked Henke directly: “You received a miracle. Did you return on your knees?”

“No, no,” she said with a flip of the wrist. “I will maybe do it sometime.”

Her velour pants looked a bit thin in the knees for such a feat. The woman she'd harassed earlier was long gone, luckily, for the sight of her floor mats would have broken the spell of the martyr's tale completely.

Graves set at such random intervals created a Pachinko-like effect as the group funneled down the hill; somehow we were bumping into people we thought we'd just passed. I'd later learn that the existing graves were likewise askew when Soldado was ordered to run for his life before a firing squad composed of, possibly, soldiers he'd worked alongside. Capital punishment didn't exist in this Catholic country—theoretically. The element of running was a go-round. It suggested that the convict was in fact trying to escape the law, and thus stopping him with bullets was justified. There were newspapermen from Los Angeles and San Diego and a crowd in the hundreds. Morales, dressed in a uniform stripped of insignia, understood what was to follow, but he nevertheless bolted when the signal was given. The United States border was within his view, the graves
provided cover; an escape looked remotely possible. A witness claimed that as Morales jumped over and around the gravestones, the soldier spotted a small boy paralyzed in his path. The boy had been hiding behind a granite block, having stolen away to watch the pomp of the event. Children were not welcome at the execution, but the festivities proved irresistible. Juan stopped his flight to wave the stunned boy back, out of the line of fire. He then regained some distance through the maze of tombs before the first volley of gunfire sounded. A bullet nicked his skin. He continued to run. Maybe the large sepulchers provided too much cover; maybe his comrades fired into the sky on last impulse. Two more rounds were ordered before Morales finally fell.

Saving the boy was his final act. Although recorded in newspaper accounts, this detail of selfless grace has somehow been edited from the traditional myth. One can only wonder why.

The scattered arrangement of the graves also put me, as we neared the cobblestone road, arm's length from the raven-haired woman with the green eyes. Talking with a girlfriend in Spanish, she paused and turned slightly back and said in English, “We have a lot of ghosts in Tijuana, for a city that is so young.”

“What others?” I asked.

“Well, I went to high school at Agua Caliente, the technical school. There was a woman in white called La Faraona. She appeared as a light. Kids saw her all the time, even I saw her,” she said.

Agua Caliente sat two miles up the riverbed. It once held a lavish Mexican-colonial-style casino, hotel, and racetrack that attracted Hollywood starlets like Rita Hayworth. La Faraona—the Pharaoh—had supposedly been an entertainer who dressed in white robes. She was murdered somewhere in the resort at the height of its renown. After gambling was outlawed by Mexico's president Lázaro Cárdenas in the late thirties, part of the tourist complex was turned into a school. Much of the rest fell to ruin.

“But I've never been here,” she continued with a sweep of the hand. “We lived on the other side of the city. And at that time it was too dangerous to travel about.”

The woman and her friend picked up their conversation and continued onto the cobblestone road. I heard her mention that she'd attended a California State University campus, and now lived in San Diego. Here was an elegant, educated woman who no longer lived in Tijuana, but nevertheless adhered to its social codes and superstitions, to mores necessary in the accretion of myths and legends—no matter how dubious.

There were many reasons I began my search for the source of the Tijuana bicycles at the Puerta Blanca cemetery. Among them was the spiritual aspect. The shrine of Juan Soldado had lorded over the history of Mexican migration to the United States—from those invited to work California's fields during World War II to those who crossed just yesterday. Prospective migrants from all over Mexico continued to pay homage to Soldado and their stories were scrawled upon his tomb. I liked to believe there had been migrants who, between 2006 and 2009, trekked up the cobblestones, petitioned the saint, and later mounted a bike and pedaled into new lives and grand futures.

But the geography of the area, to my mind, was also elemental, because the United States lay downhill from Tijuana, and gravity, as both a metaphor and a physical force, defined the entire region. The hemisphere seemed bent along this axis. And everything came tumbling down: flash floods and killer bees and wild parrots and car tires and mountain lions and pollution and people and cultures and languages.

Also just downhill from the cemetery, incidentally, sat one of the closest bike shops to the border. My guess was that even a spiritual journey needed a new set of inner tubes and some brake cables now and again.

9

The Chicago Club lay just off Calle Coahuila, the Zona Norte's main drag, and within view of the red-light district's most popular bars. Inside, past a bouncer and a vacant coat-check stand, a huddle of vinyl booths surrounded a low parquet stage where dancers twirled about brass poles at either end. To the left, a bar extended nearly the length of the room; the wall behind it was mirrored and filled with bottles. The rest of the decor was basic, mostly red and black. Only at the very rear of the room was there a reference to the club's theme. It was a large portrait of the American gangster Al Capone.

Every
pollero
operation chose a local cantina as a de facto base. In the field, communication was often interrupted, and crews were easily divided. So a prearranged spot that provided cover was essential. This one was dark, intimate, and close to the border. It didn't charge a cover. One could see who came and who went. An average patron could easily get to know the bartenders and strippers who worked there. And if a crossing was particularly successful, the ingredients for a celebration were always at hand. That the club El Indio and his
amigos
chose as the base for their cadre of smugglers took its theme from America's bootleg heyday was not a point that garnered mention by any of them.

Early on a Tuesday evening was a slow time at the club. The dancers tended to slouch about like lonely car-wash attendants—women almost unassociated to the elongated and alluring vixens conjured by frequent and healthy tips. Juan was sitting at the bar chatting with a woman in a schoolgirl's plaid skirt when Indio walked in. Juan spotted his
socio
—his partner—but continued the casual conversation. Indio pulled out a seat, said hello to the girl, and exchanged mild pleasantries with Juan. A silence settled. Soon enough, the stripper moved on to some promising tourists seated in a corner.

“You made it,” Juan said, excitedly.

“Yeah.”

“With the bike?”

“No,” he admitted. “I left it.”

It was the first vehicle El Indio had ever owned—a dream bike to the kid he'd been in the village. But the
pollero
hadn't wanted
la migra
to spot him riding back on the exact bike he'd just crossed with. Not that the
jalapeños
were bicycle experts, or even aware. He was just nervous, superstitious even.

“Of course,” said Juan. “Still, it's too bad . . . that was a cool bike.”

“We need more. I'm looking to get, say, thirty. For starters.”

“Let me see what I can do. I'll meet up with some friends here in
la Zona
, and I'll put the order in.”

“Also, we need someone on the inside who can make the pickup.” This was a bigger challenge, one that required strong connections in the United States.

“Yeah, I have some friends,” Juan said. “In fact, I called Luis. He should be here soon. He has a green card, never has any problems.”

The
polleros
ordered beers. As the night progressed the club began to fill. The PA's volume seemed to rise with the action. Rather than absently circling the brass poles, now the ladies began to kick and lift, to shimmy and spin. The nightly party was unfolding, fresh again, when a big, husky guy stumbled into the club. This man
walked along the bar until he found Juan, who greeted him with affection and introduced him to El Indio. The loud music had a way of creating bubbles of privacy. Small groups could talk openly without appearing conspiratorial. Though his small talk was spare, Indio had a way of sizing people up in minute exchanges. Juan's banter eased the situation. Luis was not shy when recounting his feats in the field, and he must have met some requisite borderlands standard. Because at some point, in vague terms, Indio began to convey their scheme to Luis. A particular dancer caught Juan's attention and he turned away to watch. A moment later, he heard Luis erupt in laughter that sheared through the music. When he looked, Luis had his big hand on Indio's shoulder.

“What, Juanito?” Luis said. “You asked me down here to tell jokes? Ha, ha. I hope you're buying drinks, my friend.”

Indio was silent, proffering the Oaxacan mask that revealed nothing.

“Listen,
jefe
,” Juan intervened on Luis's behalf. “It's a normal reaction, eh? Who would imagine this harebrained idea? He's only surprised.”

“Actually, I'm impressed,” the big man said before gulping his glass of
Bucanas
. He laughed again. A flush overcame his face and his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the room.

Indio gathered himself before addressing the new associate. “Look, let's say you pick up my people tomorrow night, a trial run only. We've set the place and the hour. You wait there. You pick us up. You drive away with good money. But I have to know it's a sure thing you'll be there.”

“As long as the
pollos
are going to be there, so will I,” Luis said. He raised a finger. “I don't want to be driving around for nothing.” The driver slapped Juan on the chest. “You owe me.”