Walking into the novel

A work mate lent me Cormac McCarthy's 'The Crossing' because it is set in the area of the US I was about to visit. A canned sardine space on the economy flight from Auckland thus expanded out into the vast empty plains of the New Mexico / Texas / Mexican border. I followed sixteen year old Billy and his captured pregnant she wolf on their ultimately fruitless journey towards the mountains. Accompanied him on every hazardous step of the lone trek back to a destroyed home, and on again into Mexico with brother Boyd to hunt down their father's killer. People that fed and looked after the near starving brothers along the way without needing to be asked were the ancestors of the self same people I was about to meet.

The arrival queue at LAX was long-ish and kept being shifted so that no matter where I started, I ended up at the back of a line. This was for efficiency, I learned, as another flight was due in right behind us and immigration get nervous if people get to mix with others they didn't arrive with. No big dramas though. Signs on the front of the immigration desks advise newcomers and workers alike that this is the face of America. Its pretty friendly if my fairly limited experience is anything to go by. The conversation is light as my fingers are digitally printed and my eye similarly scanned. The Scottish accent scores yet another hit, as I learn the large (do they come in any other size?) middle aged officer's ancestors hail from Oban. I happen to have been there with my nearly eighty year old parents less than six months back, so the 'welcome to the United States' is even a little warmer and more personal than usual. I have heard of more troubled experiences at these borders but only second hand so far.

The transfer to domestic for the flight on to Albuquerque is equally hassle free and I hook up with Gary, Ian and Lorraine in terminal 7 where we splash out on local beer and cocktails even though it's still only 11am in New Zealand! We soon split up again as they head off to Las Vegas and Flagstaff. I am glad of the direct flight to New Mexico where there used to be a minimum of one stop over and a few more hours of the journey.

I touch down to find Tom in the bookstore and Stacy driving round the block. The car with bikes strapped on top is to high to get into the car park. A quick getaway has us at the Owl Cafe at San Antonio, NM well before 8.30 last orders for green chile cheeseburgers. The Owl is like a movie set western bar, and there really is a guy in blue jeans, cowboy boots and spurs sitting astride a wooden bar stool. The barista is a chatty Latina, and relics of the past life of this small south western town are posted all over the walls. An instant and welcome shift to local culture is complete after the hour plus drive on down to Truth or Consequences where the promised soak in a horse trough awaits. The detail I have yet to fill in is the hot geothermal spring water pumped up into the trough in the back yard of the borrowed cabin where we will stay for the first two nights. That and the balmy, full moonlit night.

So less than 24 hours out of Auckland, I have switched worlds. Stepped back, it appears, a hundred or so years to where sheriffs may no longer mosey around on horses but still wear Stetsons and boots. Single storey adobe buildings line two parallel main streets. Just a few others cross at right angles. Hills behind the town look copied from one of many painted deserts around the area and a murky, narrow river meanders through. Kids loll around the dusty riverside in beat up utes and tourists wander in 90 degree heat with nothing much to do. We finally spot a place that looks likely to serve up a cold beer to round off the day. A large extended family from El Paso tells there is no bar and insist on us sharing their beer and stories. The hospitality and the language tell I have walked into the pages of the novel.