Spiders and Scorpions crawled along the earthen walls -- why did I have to go first? The inside of the tunnel smelled like the carcass of a dead steer. Moldy marijuana buds caught in the cobwebs. Rats stopped in their tracks and stared at us. My mom and this guy Thad, who she said was my father, didn’t even notice, busy as they were whispering to each other. I could feel their smiles. They’re enjoying this. What are they talking about anyway?

Whoever dug this place out must have been tall, the ceilings were as high as the top of a soccer goal, but you could barely squeeze two people in walking side by side, maybe three. We wore masks to breathe but they weren’t thick enough to keep the dirt from getting in our mouths. Clouds of dust floated like insects in my cap’s light with nothing but darkness beyond; I hate confined spaces. Like being in a jail cell. I felt like we were in a sub on the deepest bottom of the ocean. I expected weird fish with luminescent eyes to appear. Maybe a giant squid? Or jellyfish. I laughed.

Thad leaned forward over my mother’s shoulder. “Julian, are you okay?”

I waved my hand in the air as an okay and kept inching forward in the dark when all of a sudden ahead two white sombreros appeared -- then disappeared. Whoa, what was that? My mother and Thad bumped into me.

She turned me around “What is it, Julian? what did you see?”

“I thought I saw people moving up there. But then they were gone.”

Sounding like the groan of a ghost, the low buzz of a kazoo filled the tunnel. Was this place haunted too? How many skeletons of the missing were in here with us? The kazoo sounded like one of those horns the tamale guy blows in the streets at night. Was it a signal from the comandante? Or had some smuggler discovered us snooping around in his tunnel uninvited?

Turning off the light on his cap, Thad nodded at me. “Turn yours off too.”

Mine was already off. Don’t worry, Thad, I’m way ahead of you.

Behind us on the Mexican side firework sparks lit up and scattered like lightening bugs. POP-dada-CRAK-CRAK. Their clattering ricocheted off the walls. I covered my ears until it stopped. Through my mask I smelled the sulfur. Clumps of dirt rained down on us.

A strobe light flipped on behind us so we couldn’t tell who it was. Its pulsating orbs blinked upon us, on the overhead tunnel pipes I saw a rat running in slow motion. I covered my eyes. A loudspeaker blared with scratchy feedback in Spanish.

“Detente donde estás. No se muevan. ¡Levántase.”

My mother’s nails pierced my hand. “Thad, what’s happening?” She didn’t bother to whisper anymore. “The border patrol?”

“No something much worse.” If that were possible.

Thad turned to look back at the strobe light blocking it from his eyes and shouted back at them.

“Tell us who you are first. What do you want?”

From the American side the two sombreros appeared shining flashlights on us, men with red scarfs pulled up over their noses. Machine guns hung off their shoulders. They better be with the Comandante, otherwise we’re screwed.

From the Mexican side of the tunnel heavy boots knocked and clomped on the floor planks louder as they drew near. The strobe light turned off and we saw our shadows dancing on three banditos. The man in the middle of the three held his hand to his eyes to block the light coming from the sombreros.

“Turn those off!” He spoke Mayan to them in a familiar voice.

Comandante? I held my heart. Finally.

From the middle of the three he stepped forward. This was the moment he foretold would spark the beginning of the revolution – my kidnapping. It was hard to breathe. I pulled down my mask. Am I ready for this? The mission I’d been trained for all these cold weeks in the mountains had come.

“Take the boy.” The Comandante ordered.

This is it. I hugged my mother. “No matter what happens mama, I love you.”

The Sombreros pried me away from her. “Let go of me, let go!” Was that convincing? Maybe I should beg for them to let me go. But I wouldn’t be that much of a coward, if this were really happening, would I?

My mother smothered me in a hug and ripped off her mask. “No, por favor no lo hagas!” her voice cracked. “Deja mi hijo, te suplico.” She let go of me and dropped her head to the floor. “No, porfa, el es un -- hijo – bueno – nooo.” Her words were drowned out by her crying. She was shaking.

I was wrong. I thought she would be more of a bad ass and defiant when this happened. Don’t worry about your mother the comandante said back at the monastery, she’s strong, she’ll put up a fight, but we will treat her gently. You can reassure her that everything will be all right. I’m not so sure I can do that anymore.

“Mama todo está bien, mama.” I started to cry; I couldn’t help it.

As she let go, she cradled in a ball. She was the bravest woman in the world. I’d never seen her this vulnerable. “Please I beg you. Don’t take my son from me.”

I shook off the sombreros and raised her chin up to me. “It’s okay mama, I’ll be okay.” I grabbed her hands. “They won’t hurt me, I know -- I just know.”

The comandante nodded to one of his guards and she took my mother’s arm.

Is she coming with us? That was a change in the plan. Did her crying tug at his heart strings too?

Crouching down, the woman grabbed my mother’s arm. I saw a faded tattoo across her knuckles, E-Z-L-N., a true revolutionary. Thad pulled her hand from my mother’s arm.

The woman stood, spit on the ground and glared at Thad. “Gringo.” She looked up at the comandante. “What do we do with him?”

His eyes glowed. “Shoot him.”

“No!” My mother grabbed the comandante’s leg.

This is insane. Is it time for me to say what’s going on? I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. Was I dreaming all this?

The comandante looked down at my mother begging at his feet. “If you want him to live, Lucia, then let us go.”

I sat up. Was that a slip? No one was supposed to know her name.

The sombreros started dragging me back towards Mexico. I went limp and sobbed, “Mama-mama-mama!”

When the woman yanked her grip from the comandante’s leg, my mother stood up and took cover behind Thad.

The comandante leaned toward Thad, his chin within an inch of his. “Don’t try to follow us, Gringo, or we will kill the boy. Get moving to your side of the tunnel.”

Thad jerked the Comandante’s mask down, exposing his face. Wow. Did he just do that? Does he have a death wish?

The comandante didn’t move a single face muscle. The other guard cocked his pistol to Thad’s head.

Everything in that tunnel froze in a picture frame. The rats stood on their hindlegs and stared, the scorpions and the spiders stopped crawling. Sweat trickled down Thad’s forehead, but he did not flinch. Slowly with his hand he pushed the pistol away from his temple.

“I just wanted to know who you are and what you look like, because I will find you.”

The comandante did not smile. He pulled his scarf back up over his nose and we left.

My mother stepped towards us and shouted. “Hijo de putas! Si toques un pelo de cabeza de mi hijo te castigo todos! Mother fuckers!”

It was all I could do not to shout back at her that this was all a hoax, part of a bigger plan, that everything would work out in the end. That an Angel told the Comandante that I was chosen by God for a just purpose. But did it include letting my own mom suffer like this? Her sobs faded the farther away we moved.

I am an evil son. Who would betray his own mother like this? Keeping her in the dark about a plan that will lead Mexico to be a better country where everyone is equal, everyone learns to read write, can go to a hospital whenever they are sick and are treated fairly, and farmers aren’t forced to pay rent on their own lands. Innocent people killed like fodder by the police or the army on behalf of the rich. My mom was strict, and pain in the ass now and then, still treating me like a boy, not seeing I’d grown taller than she was. But did she deserve to suffer like this? No. If comandante is wrong, and anything bad happens to her – I will murder him in his sleep.

Next Chapter: CH 6 Julian has Second Thoughts