Todd Stewart | Studio

El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, 2019

Cutting For Sign | El Paso, Texas

31° 46' 21.1548'' N, 106° 27' 39.4308'' W

The fiendish ploys of the Coyotes offer you many opportunities to hone your signcutting skills. The whole game for their team is to pass by invisibly, and the team on this side is paid to see the invisible. The Coyotes score when they make it, and the Migra scores when they don’t. Like pro wrestling, there is a masked invader who regularly storms the field to disrupt the game. This, of course, is La Muerte.

The illegals try to leap across the drags, but the drags are often wide enough to make jumpers hit the ground at least once. They walk backward, hoping to confuse cutters. You have to be good to confuse a veteran. An Indian reservation cop says, “Them trackers can probably tell you what color the guy’s hair was, and that he had eighty-nine cents in his left pocket. Then they can tell you the last time he got laid.”

There is room, in this desert world, for scholarship as well as sport. Cutters read the land like a text. They search the manuscript of the ground for irregularities in its narration. They know the plots and the images by heart. They can see where the punctuation goes. They are landscape grammarians, got the Ph.D. in reading dirt.

On lava, a displaced stone will reveal a semicircle of lighter ground underneath. Likewise a pebble kicked out of place on the hardpan, where the desert varnish that accumulates on the ground reveals a crescent of paler sand. In-ground sensors are buried in places known only to the Border Patrol. These sensors are known as Oscars. A Coyote would give his teeth to get hold of this information.

Often the drag will have what Kenny Smith calls “hither thither.” Hither thither is a scrabble of pebbles and twigs and dirt on the clean face of the drag. It’s knocked from the tiny berms that the tire drags raise on either side of the road, and they tell you that someone tried to hop over. You look out beyond hither thither for true sign.

Signcutters know most walkers pass between 11:00 at night and 3:00 the next morning. They can tell how old a track is by its sharpness - even in the desert, dirt holds some humidity, and it is this humidity that defines the track’s edges. As a track ages, it dries, and as it dries, its edges soften.

Bug - sign is created when small creatures begin to scurry about just before dawn. Often, this hour is the only comfortable moment of the day, and in a burst of breakfast exuberance, lizards, rats, and insects set off in a willy - nilly marathon. If bug - sign crosses over a walker’s footprint, the cutter knows the walker has passed nearer to midnight than to dawn. If, however, the footstep flattens the bug - sign, the cutter knows the walker has recently passed, and is in the immediate area, and is probably in trouble. The sun is up, the temperature is rising, and the day will only get more brutal. When the cutter sees criss - crossing sign on the drag, he radios another unit. That agent drives to the next drag north and cuts. If he finds sign, he calls the first unit to leapfrog north to the next drag. He cuts it. Sooner or later, the sign runs out, and they have the walkers boxed in between them. It’s when the walkers get far off the drags that all the trouble starts.

The Devil’s Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea, 2004 B|RA 021020

Boundary Between the United States and Mexico Showing the Initial Point Under the Treaty of December 30th, 1853. Astronomically Determined and Surveyed in 1855 Under the Direction of William H. Emory, U.S. Commissioner, United States and Mexico Boundary Survey Map, 1855 B|RA 020220

Copper Mountains, Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, Arizona, 2018

Water Tanks | El Camino del Diablo, Arizona

32°17'00.00" N, 114°03'00.00" W

Wells are generally of two kinds, shallow dug wells and deep drilled wells. The dug wells are commonly excavated in rock, although a few penetrate, alluvium only. They are located in or along the border of the mountains. The yield of these wells is not great, and many holes have been dug without obtaining water. In general, if water is found it is ample for travelers. Travelers should, however, carry a bucket and 50 to 75 feet of rope, for many of these wells are not provided with any equipment. The sanitary character of the water is usually good, but wells that are unprotected and little used are sometimes contaminated by the bodies of rats and other small animals which fall in and drown. The traveler should be on the watch for such pollution. The Papagos draw water from wells in rawhide buckets. These buckets are made from fresh hides, and the hair rots off only with time. The fastidious traveler will boil water from Indian wells.

Rock tanks, called in Spanish “tinajas,” are natural cavities in the rocks which retain water for longer or shorter periods after rains. The traveler will find these useful watering places and will be especially dependent on them in the area west of Ajo. The length of time in which water will be found at any tank depends on the season. Travelers should seek local information when they know that they are to be dependent on tanks. The water is sometimes foul from the growth of green algae or from the bodies of bees that fall in and drown. It is unlikely, however, that disease germs are present, for these tanks are seldom visited. The almost constant sunshine is also a great antiseptic agent. The so-called sand tanks are rock tanks that are filled with coarse sand in which the water is found by digging. They are less likely to be foul than rock tanks, and as the sand prevents evaporation the water commonly lasts longer.

Tinajas Altas. Water will be found in a Series of tanks in a very steep stream channel or dry falls 500 feet west of sign. The lowest tank is commonly full of sand, and water will be found by digging in sand. The second and third tanks are best reached by turning to left (south), where a steel cable will be found, up which it is easy to climb the smooth rock face. The upper tanks are difficult to reach, and it can perhaps best be done by taking trail to right and climbing to “ window “ and then going down to canyon above-the falls. The water lasts all year, but the lower tanks are sometimes exhausted by travelers. If so, climb to upper tanks and pour water down channel to fill lower ones. The water is palatable but there are usually dead bees in it. Occasionally mountain sheep slip and fall into the tanks and contaminate the water. Travelers will find road from Geological Survey sign up arroyo to tanks very difficult for automobiles, and are advised to camp on gravel bench west of sign.

Routes to Desert Watering Places in the Papago Country, Arizona, Kirk Bryan, 1922 B|RA 020820

B|RA 020220The Thicket, Quitobaquito Springs, Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, Arizona, 2016

The Thicket | Quitobaquito Springs, Arizona

31°56'33.96" N, 113°01'14.35" W

On the 7th (October, 1698), on leaving from San Rafael (Guivave, Arizona) for San Marcelo (Sonoyta, Sonora), (the Indians) gave us another 11 little ones to baptize. At midday I located the sun with the astrolabe and found myself with a solar altitude of 52 degrees. With the 5 degrees and 29 minutes of declination of the sun, today we are at 32 degrees and 30 minutes, North Latitude. After traveling 11 leagues we arrived in the company of the new Governor himself of San Marcelo and of others who accompanied us. They gave us 24 little ones to baptize. In the afternoon we left for the good place which we named San Serguio (Quitobaquito) and another four leagues along the arroyo (Rio Sonoyta) which goes to the sea. It has water which runs in many places, cienegas, tules, and ducks and birds from the marshes, and excellent pasturage for the cattle. From San Marcelo (Sonoyta) there are irrigation canals and flat level lands for planting, although this year they had not sowed these except for many squashes, being that in the rest of the preceding ranches of San Rafael and of San Francisco, we had found much corn, beans, watermelons and squashes.

On the 8th we set out for the sea accompanied by the new Governor and Fiscal Mayor of San Marcelo del Sonoidag. We went with the precaution of loading the mules with crates full of ollas and gourds to carry water and grass, as the guides did not tell us that on the road and not very far from the sea, there was water and grass and even a rancheria of people with their cornfields and squash. Consequently, we left the crates and gourds and pack mules at this place of San Serguio (Quitobaquito), and we set out for the rancheria of the sea which we named Santa Brigida, it being her day. We arrived at sunset, after 18 leagues of a very good road with enough running water grass, reeds, and tules. . .

Kino’s Historical Memoir of Pimería Alta: A Contemporary Account of the Beginnings of California, Sonora, and Arizona, Volume 1, Eusebio Francisco Kino, 1683-1711, B|RA 020720