By Brooks Potter
There was just enough room under the bench seat and the kind of false floor in the back to ditch our shotguns, ammo, and such. We were still mostly kids, but this was not our first rodeo. The five of us squeezed into Robby’s Ford Bronco with guns and gear—and pointed south to Calexico, and then on to the US/Mexico border at Mexicali.
“What is your destination?” the Mexican border agent asked.
“La Mission Dragon.”
That was slightly less than a half-truth. Indifferently, he waved us through.
We were heading into Mexico to hunt pheasant in the cornfields of the Mexicali Valley. The prospect that pheasant could be found anywhere in the Sonoran Desert was absurd. But there it was.
The Mission Dragon was a long-celebrated Chinese restaurant in a better part of Mexicali. With Mexico’s not-so-insignificant Chinese population, the food there was first-tier. Hong and his family had happily prepared our pheasant for years. The game-bird Kung Pao and stir fry were the go-to’s, of course with the added heat of ample jalapeños—an appropriate local twist.
As a gringo, hunting in Mexico without a license or gun permit was not a good idea, even in the “meh” of the ’70s. We knew better, but we were stupid kids and Mexico was our backyard sandbox. So close to the border, we figured it was kind of the U.S. anyway.
Gabriel was full Mexican and ran the field work of Rob’s family’s immense farming operation in El Centro. Though we were all Spanish-fluent, Gabe was our emissary in the event of an issue. He’d smoothed out a thing or two for us before.
The pequeno pueblo of Nuevo León was about an hour due south of Mexicali—with the requisite smattering of half-finished structures and the perpetually burning trash emitting that special scent of rural Mexico. Just out of town, we’d turn left off Federal Highway 1 at the second irrigation canal, then drive along the pancake dusty ditch bank for about a mile.
Tucked deep in los campos and in the shade of a giant cottonwood, was the turquoise house we’d returned to over the years. We knew the family and they knew us. Following in our dads’ footsteps, we hunted pheasant each fall in the 100 hectares or so of corn surrounding the little family compound. And each December, we’d bring Christmas gifts of new tennis shoes, candy and what not for the throng of kids. Padre always got a particularly nice bottle of tequila and a couple of boxes of shotgun shells. We’d give La Madre a nice scarf or something. Anything was a hit. Esposa’s generally suck hind tit in the gift department. Anyway, we could shoot the place whenever.
The age-appropriate kids were our flushers, pushing pheasant from the standing corn, beating the stocks with sticks and yip-yip’ing. We’d station strategically here and there, shooting the driven birds on their way out of camp. It was a proper UK shoot, south of the border style. No tweed breeks or Wellington boots, but instead worn-out Carhartt’s and Danner’s. The kids were our retrievers too, and rarely a lost bird. They knew the wily ways of a crippled pheasant.
Well into the particularly fine shoot, a dust plume rose some ways down the ditch. So far afield, we gave it no nevermind until from somewhere in the stalks, one of the kids yelled, “Policia!”
Oh fuck.
Where’d he come from and why. We were in the back of beyond.
With a faint chug from a busted exhaust manifold, a 70s-era Ford Galaxy appeared—a Mexican knockoff of Barney Fife’s ride with the long whip antenna and gum ball machine atop. Appearing to be in no particular hurry, it took the policia a while to navigate the maze.
This now fell squarely on our emissary Gabe’s shoulders.
Once the trailing dust cloud had passed over the car, the portly cop stepped from the unit. Wearing what looked to be a second hand uniform, his holstered police-issue .38 swung too loosely from his belt. By this time, we’d ditched our guns—like we were going to fool somebody. The defective thinking of youth.
Gabe met him at his car with a handshake and respectful “mucho gusto.” A seemingly relaxed conversation ensued.
Leaving the cop at his car, Gabe walked back to us. “He’s asking for licenses and gun permits.” Then was this then kind of dead air space. This wasn’t a traffic ticket or a drunk and disorderly at Hussongs Cantina.
This was a federal offense.
The long-in-place [general] plan was that the gringo’s would play dumb. We’d understand nothing said or asked, our full fluency notwithstanding.
“So what do you think?” we asked Gabe, oh-so-hoping this entanglement would settle as things did in Mexico. “I dunno. Give me a minute,” he said.
This kind of negocio is tricky. Never start with too much, tipping a hand that there’s more where that came from, and certainly never too little to insult. It’s purely an ethnical read. This was no time to be cute.
The kids were in an animated conversation of their own with the cop. Everyone knew Barney Fife. This was reassuring.
Shooing the kids aside, Gabe and the cop continued their visit for several long minutes. Finally, the cop got back in his car and with the kids waiving, he chugged away, back down the ditch bank from whence he came.
“Twenty bucks” Gabe said. “And we need to leave.” We dropped the kids at the turquoise house, tipped them each a dollar and gave our heap of pheasant to Madre. She had no idea why the cop showed up, and we believed her. We were family after all. With smiles and waves, we pointed our way north to the border with both hands on the wheel.
Musing about this stumble many, many years later with a coconspirator, it occurred to us that this cop was in the middle of nowhere, facing five guys with shotguns and in mighty close proximity to an irrigation canal. We wondered if he’d considered that.
