Borderline [On hold for major revision]

Chapter 2: Lawbreaking

This chapter happens to have Spanish, which is a language I don't speak very well. If you guys who know it better than me spot any grammar mistakes, please let me know what the correct form would be. Thanks!

Chapter 2 

At six in the evening my work day was over, and I could finally leave. Normally I felt a slight twinge of sadness at this—it was better to be strolling in the afternoon sun with people who were sort of my friends than sitting alone in an empty ranch that used to belong to my late aunt. Never mind that the "strolling" I was paid to do included catching bad guys who wouldn't bat an eye at the chance to blow my head off.

Evidenced by my day today.

The more I thought about what happened earlier, the more curious I got. There were just so many things that didn't make sense about what happened. As I started the drive home I started to make a mental list of everything unusual about the entire situation, then I was going write it down later so I could start unraveling this tangled new puzzle and hopefully get at some answers. 

Obviously, my life's been threatened before; people tend to not like getting arrested, then shipped back to the poverty they were running from. I didn't blame them for this, it was common sense. What I don't like is when people take advantage of innocents wanting to make a new life for themselves, forcing them to sell all their belongings and their bodies in exchange for safe passage into America. Unfortunately, this happened all too often, despite our constant efforts at preventing it. The seeming futility of it all was what caused a certain solemnity while on the job for many agents.

This new train of thought reminded me of my plans for later tonight. I sighed. My life was complicated and dangerous enough as it was without some new threat I'd have to deal with.

As often, I wished my instincts were off. I wished with all my heart that this was just another random drug smuggler trying to scare me. But I had a feeling that this wasn't an ordinary criminal, and when I felt something this strongly I was never wrong.

Chasing these thoughts from my mind, I pulled my old Ford pickup around to the back of my ranch house. All I really wanted to do was take a shower and crash on the couch, but there were more important things that needed done first.

I got out of my pickup and walked over to a storage shed behind the house, glancing both ways to make sure no one was nearby. My home was pretty much completely separated from society, but what I was about to do was bad enough that I was careful anyway. As expected, nobody was around, so I opened the 10-by-10 storage shed and walked in, closing the doors behind me. Once I was sure no one would be able to see in, I opened up a trapdoor built into the ground and started lifting the boxes underneath. When I was all done I tentatively opened the door to the shed and quickly loaded the boxes into the bed and trunk of the pickup, making sure to cover the exposed ones with a tarp. The items themselves weren't suspicious, but the quantity I had coupled with my lack of need for them might raise a few eyebrows.

But these were for someone else, someone who didn't share my lack of need.

I drove for about ten minutes to a location that few knew about. As far as I was aware, I was the only Anglo to ever visit. None of the lights were on, but that was to be expected. The residents here had a lot of reason to keep a low profile.

I got out of the car and knocked on the brittle, wooden door. I heard a light shift of movement in front of the small home, but no one answered the door.

"Quien va?" someone called to me.

"Yo. Tuck." Tuck was the name I was known by among the Mexican immigrants. I was told it's supposed to be a reference to the friar Tuck, who was a close associate of Robin Hood, plus it was part of my last name. Most of the people who called me Tuck didn't know this last part, though; that would be too dangerous if they were caught. The name did give me a "take from the rich, give to the poor" reputation that seemed oddly fitting. Except I didn't steal from the rich. I think.