When she left her house that night I was waiting for her, leaning against my car.

Eva was in white silk that looked nearly green in the moonlight, and now I couldn't look at her without looking for a flash of red near her throat.

I knew her so well; it stung that she wouldn't give me credit for it.

"You ruined my movie," I said, casually. "Without you I had to change the whole thing. If that doesn't work, Capital is out a lot of money, and I'm sunk."

"That's because you promised something that wasn't yours to give," she said.

"How do you think movies get made, Eva?"

Now she looked wary. God, her face was exquisite. I realized, too late, I should have brought a camera.

"Do you think this is still just for the movie?" she asked.

She was looking right at me, and I felt guiltier than I had in a long time.

"Someday you'll understand," I said.

Then I yanked the gun out of my jacket and pulled the trigger.

As a director, there were two problems with what happened next.

1) I was a pretty cheap shot-I'd just bought the gun, it's not as if I had practiced-so the recoil surprised me and the bullet went wild, which takes away the power of the moment.

2) When you tell someone "Someday you'll understand" right before you shoot, you're not absolving yourself so much as you are giving them a moment to prepare, and then what happens is that by the time your shot goes wide you're already staring at the last of the hummingbirds disappearing into the trees.

Still, when I stopped worrying if I'd broken my thumb, I saw that there was a hummingbird hopping around on the dirt in front of me in a panic, one of its outstretched wings suddenly much shorter than the other.

The singed edges were still warm to the touch where the bullet had struck, I noticed, after I scooped it up and kissed it.

The birdcage is an antique, a gift from the studio. It's big enough that the hummingbird could fly around pretty comfortably, if it could still fly.

(I named it Polly for the present, because that was just the best name for a bird. Whenever people come over, they laugh themselves sick when I tell them, and then they try to call her over like it's actually a parrot and can answer to the name. I'm working on getting some more sophisticated people.) I keep the cage just near enough to the window that when the others come looking they'll see Polly sitting there, and just far enough in that there's no stealing her out without coming all the way inside.

And they will come back; Eva can't become human without all of them, and there are only so many places you can hide two hundred hummingbirds.

("Rising Star Falls," cried the Reporter. "Exotic Eva Disappears-Have We Seen Her Last Film?") I hope that's not the case. I'm not out to harm anyone. When she comes back to bargain, I'll be happy to bargain.

She knows who makes a star.

COYOTAJE.

MARIE BRENNAN.

The coyotes of Mexicali were bold. They did their business in cantinas, in the middle of the afternoon; the police, well-fed with bribes, looked the other way. Day by day, week by week, people came into Mexicali, carrying backpacks and bundles and small children, and day by day, week by week, they went away again, vanishing while the back of the police was obligingly turned.

If the people could afford it. "The price is twenty-five thousand pesos," the coyote repeated, and drained the last of his beer. "If you can't pay, stop wasting my time."

Ines bit her lip, looking down at the scratched Formica tabletop. "I don't have twenty-five thousand. I only have-" She stopped herself before saying the number. Mexicali was far from the worst of the border towns, but it was bad enough, if you went looking for the wrong people.

The coyote shrugged. "Try El Rojo. He might take you for less. Especially if you have something else to offer." The quick downward flick of his eyes made his meaning clear.

"Where can I find El Rojo?"

"La Puerta de Oro, in Chinesca. Ask for shark-fin tacos."

Ines nodded and got up. She heard footsteps following her as she left the cantina, and whirled once she was through the door, prepared to defend herself.

Her pursuer held up his hands, letting the door swing shut behind him. "Relax. I only followed because I heard what Ortega said. Don't go to El Rojo."

The sun was like a hammer on Ines' back, trying to pound her into the dust. But it meant she could see the other man's face, broad and pocked with the occasional scar, seamed where he squinted against the light. "If he's cheaper, I have to. Notold me it would be this expensive."

The man-another coyote-shrugged and pulled sunglasses from his pocket. "Can't help it. With all the new laws, it's a lot riskier for us, and you need documents on the other side. Look, I'll take you for twenty."

Ines shook her head. "I don't have twenty, either."

"Then stay here a while. There's jobs-not good ones, but if you're patient you can save enough to get across. Safely. El Rojo . . . he isn't safe."

None of it was safe; even the honest coyotes could get a migrant killed. "I don't have any choice," she said.

With the man's eyes hidden by the sunglasses, she couldn't be sure, but she thought he gave her a pitying look. "Go with God, then. And be careful."

Caution had gone out the window when Javier died. Shading her eyes against the desert sun, Ines went in search of La Puerta de Oro.

It lay in Mexicali's Chinatown, its garish red and gold faded by the elements. The interior was blindingly dark, after the street outside. "Shark-fin tacos," she said once her eyes adjusted, and the hostess jabbed her thumb toward a table in the back corner.

Two men sat there, both facing the door. The bigger one grinned as Ines approached, licking his lips in an exaggerated gesture, but it was the skinnier one she watched. He had a predator's eyes.

She cast her gaze down when she got to the table. "I want to get across the border," she said. Quietly, but not whispering. "I heard El Rojo could take me."

"I can," the smaller man said. He was wiry more than slender, hardened to rawhide by the desert sun. Other Mexicali coyotes took migrants in secret truck compartments, sneaking them across into Calexico or up to State Route 7, then onward to San Diego or Phoenix. El Rojo, according to rumor, went a more dangerous route, through the Sonoran Desert. Less risk of being caught by the Border Patrol, but more risk of dying, whether from thirst or the guns of militia. Or coyotes, of the four-legged kind.

Ines sat, eyes still downcast; the last thing she wanted was for him to take her stare as a challenge. "I can pay ten thousand."

The bigger fellow laughed, a barking sound in the quiet of the restaurant. "That and a bit more will do, girl," he said, laying one hand on her knee as if she might not catch his meaning.

She controlled her revulsion; pulling away too fast would make her look like prey. It was the other man who mattered, anyway. El Rojo, the red one. There were many possible explanations for the nickname, few of them reassuring.

His method of bargaining showed a sharp mind. From money, he would switch without warning to questions about Ines: where she was from, why she was emigrating, what kind of work she thought she would find. She told him she came from Cuauhtemoc in Chihuahua, and had a brother who crossed at Nogales two years ago; if she could get to Albuquerque, he knew a man who could get her a job as a maid. Seventeen thousand, El Rojo said, and if she was coming from Cuauhtemoc and going to Albuquerque, why had she come to Mexicali? A man had brought her this far, promising help, Ines said, but he'd tried to rape her; she would pay fifteen thousand and no more.

El Rojo smiled, thin, lips closed. "That'll do. Half now, half when we get there, and Pipo here will show you to your room."

"My room?" Ines asked, alarm rising in her throat.

Now he showed a glint of teeth. "I'm your coyote now. Full service, from here until your trip is done. Wouldn't want you getting picked up by the cops."

Or telling anyabout his business. This was his reputation, that he was shrewd and careful, and utterly without human morals. If she gave him reason to cut her throat, he would, without hesitation.

She'd hoped to send a letter, in case she didn't survive this trip. "Do you think I'm stupid? I didn't bring the money with me."

He gestured at his companion. "Pipo will go with you to fetch it. We have a deal, and until it's done, you're mine."

The "room" Pipo showed her to was a basement elsewhere in Chinesca, though Ines, blindfolded, only knew it by the smell of spices. What sort of deals had El Rojo struck, that he chose to do business out of this part of Mexicali?

Maybe the police just paid less attention to the Chinese district. Certainly Pipo felt comfortable enough to lead her blindfolded through the streets, by a very roundabout path. When he shoved her off the last step and yanked off the bandanna, Ines found more than a dozen people in the basement already, sitting in the light of a single dim bulb, watching her with wary eyes.

"Tomorrow night," Pipo said, and left.

Ines brushed her hair from her face, nodded at the migrants, and found a place to sit by the wall, where she leaned against a broken piece of tabletop. Nospoke; she didn't expect it. Right now they were all strangers, in an unknown place, taking an enormous risk. Talk would come later, when shared trials created a sense of bonding; then she would hear about relatives on the other side of the border, or the hope of work-whatever dream or desperation sent them on this journey.

She studied them, though, out of the corners of her eyes, taking care never to stare at anyone. Most were a bit younger than her: in their teens, maybe early twenties. A few women, the rest men; three of the women were cradling children too young to walk. One man was substantially older-maybe his fifties, though with his face so wrinkled by the sun, she could be off by ten years. He made no pretense about not staring at her, though when Ines returned the look he glanced away, scratching his fingers through hair like gray wire.

Fifteen thousand pesos, Ines had promised El Rojo. Assume the same for everyone here; some maybe bargained better, some worse, and she didn't know if he charged the same for little kids. Seventeen people in this basement, counting her. Assume that was average. Two hundred fifty-five thousand pesos-more than twenty thousand dollars. How often did El Rojo do this? Every month? Less often? More? However she did the math, coyotaje was a profitable business.

One for which many people paid the price.

Javier would've told Ines she was an idiot for coming here, for putting herself into El Rojo's hands. But Javier was gone, and she was the only one who could do this.

She laid down on the hard concrete and tried to get some sleep.

When the basement door slammed open, half the people there were already awake; within seconds, all of them were on their feet, and one mother stifled her daughter's wail. Pipo grinned at them, blunt face monstrous in the dim light, and jerked a thumb toward the door. "Time to go."

Ines sneaked a glance at her mother's old watch, with its extra hole punched in the band to fit her smaller wrist. An hour past sunset. They would make their move in the dead of night.

Last chance to run.

But it was a lie. She'd passed up that chance when she sat down at El Rojo's table-maybe when she came to Mexicali in search of him. Ines followed the others upstairs and into the narrow alley behind.

A truck waited there. Ines didn't see El Rojo, but three other men were helping Pipo, and one climbed into the back with the migrants before the door was rolled down and locked into place. No secret compartment, not here; this was only to get them out of town. Most of the journey would be done on foot.

More waiting, this time in near-total darkness. Ines sat with her backpack in the hollow of her crossed legs, arms wrapped around it, swaying into the gray-haired man or the young woman on the other side every time the truck slowed or accelerated or hit a rough patch of road. The young woman sat in much the same position, only it was a little girl she held, a year old at most. The infant, of course, didn't understand what was going on, and burbled loudly to herself in the darkness.

"Shut her up, already," one of the young men said abruptly, breaking the stifling silence that overlaid the noise of the truck. "That brat's gonna get us caught."

Ines felt the mother shrink back in alarm. "Hey!" Ines said, glaring into the darkness, as if the complainer could see her. "She's happy. Would you rather she was crying?"

By the voice, she guessed him to be one of the younger ones-probably the weedy kid, fifteen at most, and twitchy with nerves. "I'd rather she shut up. Do you have any idea how far noise like that's gonna carry, once we're out in the desert?"

Better than you do. Instead she answered, "Let her tire herself out now; then she'll be quiet later. The hard part's still ahead of us."

"Noasked you," the boy said, but it was sullen rather than threatening. When noelse spoke up in his support, he made a disgusted sound and fell silent. The mother was stiff at Ines' side, but she made no protest when Ines held her fingers out blindly, for the baby to play with. A bump in the road sent her backpack toppling from her lap, but an anonymous hand pushed it back into place.

Some time after that, the truck slowed, turned, left the paved road. Ines guessed they had been driving for maybe three hours; presuming they were going east, that put them well past Yuma, into the harsh desert of Sonora. So far, at least, the rumors were true.

Knowing still didn't prepare her for what greeted the migrants when the truck rattled to a halt and Pipo let them out. All around was hard dirt and scrub brush, blue and gray beneath the brilliant canopy of the stars. Ines found herself suddenly, irrationally reluctant to leave the truck; it was the only human thing in sight, and once it was gone, they would be completely at the mercy of the coyotes.

Where is El Rojo?

He appeared without warning, from what Ines would have sworn was an empty patch of desert. The coyote sauntered toward them, hands comfortably in his pockets, but she wasn't fooled by the show of relaxation; the wary grace of his movement said he was very much alert. "Any trouble?" he asked.

Pipo bent to murmur in his ear. Ines, straining to hear, caught a scrap about the baby. El Rojo's lip curled in annoyance, and her muscles tensed. But the mother had paid, and a coyote who abandoned his cargo too easily would soon get a reputation that destroyed future business. He waved Pipo back, and turned his attention to the waiting group.

"Listen carefully," he told them, in a quiet voice that raised the hairs on Ines' neck, "because anywho dies from not paying attention won't be my problem.

"We're going over the fence. Pipo and the boys will show you how. Anywho makes a sound while we're climbing over will pay for it. Anywho hesitates gets left behind. When I run, you run until I stop. Anywho can't keep up, gets left behind. We'll go until midday, rest for four hours, move again. I say 'quiet,' you shut up or pay for it. I say 'hide,' you go straight for the nearest cover, get low, don't move until I tell you. Me and the boys leave, you stay where you are, unless you feel like dying. I give you any other orders, you obey, and don't ask questions. Got it?"

He waited until every migrant had nodded. Nodared make a sound, not even to say yes. When he had agreement, El Rojo said, "Let's go."

The fence was a black scar across the desert's face, looming high overhead. No cameras or lights out here, Ines knew, unless vigilantes on the other side had installed their own-but she trusted El Rojo to be canny enough to know if they had. Didn't trust the man any further than that, but to be competent at his business, yes. He had a good system for crossing, too. Pipo made a cup of his hands and lifted his boss to the top of the wall, where El Rojo balanced easily and unfurled a rope ladder, which one of the other men staked down in the dirt. It seemed considerate, until Ines saw how much more quickly people climbed, not having to rappel; and the ladder was more portable than a rigid one, less permanent than a tunnel. It fit everything she knew about him: quick, simple, and above all, efficient.

It was hardest for the women with small children. Mindful of El Rojo's warning, Ines held out her hands wordlessly; after a moment's hesitation, the mother she'd been sitting next to handed over her daughter, then climbed the ladder. When she was at the top, Ines stretched up to give the sleepy infant back. Then she did the same for the other two, quickly soothing the one baby who looked likely to fuss. Pipo glared, but said nothing.

She was the last one over, except for the coyotes. Not letting herself hesitate, Ines balanced on the swaying rope ladder and scrambled up to the top. With her hands braced on the fence's edge, she swung one leg over-and there she paused.

One foot in each world. It felt like it should mean something, like this fence, this barrier dividing one nation from its neighbor, should mark some profound transition. It didn't. The desert on the far side looked no different. It was all borderland, and its inhabitants, regardless of nation, had more in common with each other than with those who lived inside. She had always stood with one foot in each world; only now it was literally true.

Ines swung her other leg over and dropped to the ground below. Now she was just another illegal immigrant, risking her life to enter the United States.

As soon as she landed, El Rojo began to run.

Across the hard-packed stripe of the border road, through the scrubby bushes beyond, not waiting for the coyotes to pack up the ladder and climb down after them. They, Ines supposed, would catch up soon. The pace El Rojo set was steady, but not too fast; they would be at this for a while. She settled her backpack on her shoulders and relaxed into her stride.

The ones with children had it worst. Ines hung back, trying with her presence to give them support; it was easier to run in company than alone. The baby girl she'd played with in the truck, jolted into unhappy wakefulness, started to wail, and the mother clapped a desperate hand over her daughter's mouth. Ines tensed, looking at El Rojo, but it seemed the order against noise had only applied at the fence.

Or perhaps the paying would come later.

She worried about the older man, too. This would be a hard enough journey for her, and she was young, fit, and used to the trials of the desert. How much worse would it be for him? But the man had energy enough to spare her a rueful smile as he ran. Ines wondered what his story was. Everyone who crossed the border had one.

Running, running through the night, El Rojo in the lead, and Ines fixed her gaze on his back, as if he were prey she would wear down and finally catch.

By the time they slowed to a walk, many of the migrants were gasping. Everyone reached for water; the less cautious gulped theirs, thinking only of immediate thirst, and not the miles of desert that still lay ahead. Ines sipped cautiously, trying to estimate how far they'd come. Two miles from the border? To the left, the ground rose in a thin, jagged line. The Sierra Pinta, if she was reading their location right. El Rojo would take them through the San Cristobel wash and south of Ajo Peak, to the Tohono O'odham reservation. The people there had rescued more than a few migrants from death in the desert. Not all of those they rescued were reported to the Border Patrol, either; the Tohono O'odham knew what it was like be split apart by a fence. Some of their kin lived on the other side.

They got a short break at sunrise, among a scattering of saguaro that would hide them from distant eyes. Ines took a hat from her bag, then slipped her hand back in, hunting by touch, until she found the rubber-banded tin tucked inside her one clean shirt. She waited until the coyotes were looking elsewhere, then shifted the tin into her pocket, where she could reach it more quickly.

A scuff of foot against stone made her jump. The older man held up calming hands, then crouched at her side and murmured, "Miguel."

"Ines," she murmured back, keeping a wary eye on the coyotes.

"You seem well prepared."