Hunting Season

Hunting Season Read Free Page A

Book: Hunting Season Read Free
Author: Mirta Ojito
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caught only two Ecuadorians in the high seas. In March 1999, however, the Coast Guard intercepted a fishing vessel carrying 1,452 Ecuadorians, and in the following months other boats were also intercepted. From October 1999 to September 2000, the service found 1,244 Ecuadorians at sea, more than any other nationality. 4
    Once in Mexico, Loja’s group stayed hidden for three days in a hotel. Eventually the group was split in two. About a dozen people, including Loja, were driven in a minivan for about six hours until they reached Matamoros, a border town across from Brownsville, Texas. For three days they walked in the desert, crossing the border, each carrying two gallons of water and some food. The food ran out almost immediately. The water did too.
    Loja was blinded by thirst. For the first time he thought that God had abandoned him and that he was going to die. Just as he was adjusting to the idea of not feeling God’s presence in his life, he found a pool of putrid water, brushed aside trash and dirt, and cupped his hands to drink. It tasted like poison, he thought, but it allowed him to go on.
    He dreamed of catching one of the buzzards that circled over the group as if knowing that a meal would soon be available. He wanted to tear one apart and eat it raw with his hands, without breaking his stride. He knew he couldn’t lag behind, not even for food. Instead he started to pull chunks of cacti from the plants he encountered on his way. His hands bled from their thorns and his mouth puckered with the bitter taste of the flesh.
    At some point he came upon a woman who had fallen in a pitand was moaning for help as men and women passed her, ignoring her pleas, afraid to be separated from the group. Loja stopped and pulled her out effortlessly.
    What’s your name? she asked.
    Angel, he said.
    Then you are my guardian angel, she told him.
    Loja liked the sound of that and began to feel responsible for the others in the group. His youth, energy, and athleticism gave him an edge over others who could barely walk. When an elderly, heavyset woman fell, Loja picked her up and carried her on his wide back until the woman started to complain that he reeked of cigarettes. He extricated himself and set her down. The woman then began yelling insults, but Loja didn’t say a word. He just kept walking and made a mental note of how fluid everything was, including gratitude. A man could go from hero to pestilence in a matter of hours.
    Loja had turned twenty-two a few days before leaving Gualaceo. He had learned more about the world in two weeks than he had during two decades at home.
    Sometime during the night, a van picked up the migrants and delivered them to a ranch in Houston, where for $40 each they purchased cheap new clothing from the coyotes, took showers, and ate ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Soon Loja boarded a bus to New York, and in three days, on September 2, 1994, he found himself in Times Square, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
    In Gualaceo Loja had memorized the phone number of relatives, and during his journey he would often review it in his mind to make sure he wouldn’t forget it, but when he tried dialing the number from a phone booth in New York, a recording indicated he had dialed a number that was not in service. Though he didn’t understand the actual message, he knew he had reached a dead end. Another young man from the group offered to take Loja to his brother’s place in Manhattan. Loja accepted and joined eight other men in a one-room apartment in the basement of a buildingon Thirty-fourth Street and Third Avenue; he found a place to sleep on the floor.
    The city did not intimidate Loja, who was used to traveling all over Ecuador for basketball tournaments, and he had also visited big cities with his father. The one thing that gave him pause was the subway system with its loud noise, dirty cars, and untold number of people riding next to each other with vacant eyes. Like millions of immigrants

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