The Tortilla Curtain

the road to the Chinese store--closed and shuttered and without a car in the lot--and ducked around back, searching along the foundation for a hose bib. They collapsed there, behind the store, gulping water from a hose, precious water, wetting their faces, soaking their clothes. A little water--the Chinamen wouldn't mind, and who gave a damn if they did? Cándido's throat was raw. A big airplane, hunkering low, brushed the treetops overhead. “I'm scared,” America whispered.
    “Don't be scared,” he said, though he himself was terrified. What would they do to him now, what would they do. if they found out? They had the gas chamber here in California, didn't they? Sure they did. They'd put him in a little room with cyanide pellets and his lungs would fill with the corrosive fumes, but he wouldn't breathe, wouldn't open his mouth, he wouldn't... He took a long drink from the slack hose and thought he was going to vomit. The smoke was blacker now, pouring over them. The wind had changed and the fire was coming up the canyon. “Get up,” he said, and his voice was shot through with urgency, with panic, infested with it, a crazy man's voice. “We've got to go. Now!”
    She sat there in the mud from the hose, her big maternity shorts soaked through, the big wet folds of the maternity blouse clinging to the perfect ball of her belly, hair in her mouth, her face smudged and bleeding, her eyes wild. “No,” she said, “I won't get up. I'm tired. I feel sick.”
    He jerked her to her feet. “You want to burn?” he shouted, and his grip on her arm was punishing. “You want to die?”
    The smoke thickened. There was no one around, no one, and it was eerie, spooky, like some horror movie with the aliens closing in. Sirens wailed in the distance. América snatched her arm away from him, curled her lip to show her teeth. “Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, I do.” *** *** ***
    It was dark, darker than Cándido could ever have imagined it, all the homes in the canyon without electricity, the people evacuated, a pall of smoke closing over the sky against the distant flare of the fire. From here, high up the canyon, the fire sat low on the horizon, like a gas burner glowing under the great black pot of the sky. The winds had died down with nightfall, and the blaze was in remission, settling into its beds of coals to await the coming of day and the return of the winds. Or maybe they would put it out, maybe the _gringos__ would keep attacking it with their planes and their chemicals till they'd snubbed it out like a cigarette ground under the heel of a boot. Cándido didn't know what the next day would bring, but as he looked down into the darkened canyon he felt awed by the enormity of his bad luck, stunned by the chain of events that had led from the windfall of the turkey and the simple joy of the campfire to this nightmare of flames and smoke and airplanes that exploded across the sky. Had he really been the cause of all this? One man with a match? It was almost inconceivable, too much for his poor fevered brain to take in.
    But he didn't want to think about it. He was in trouble, deep trouble, and he needed to take stock of the situation. He was lost, hungry, with sixteen dollars and thirty-seven cents and a rusted switchblade in his pocket and all their hoard of money, their apartment fund, buried somewhere in the midst of the conflagration, and for the past two hours America had been complaining of pains deep in her gut, pains down there where the baby was, and wouldn't it be just his luck if the baby came now, at the worst possible time? It was the story of his life, pinched like a bug between two granite rocks, and how long before he was squashed?
    They were lying in a clump of bushes somewhere halfway up the western rim of the canyon, and he knew now what a worthless plan it had been to try for the top. The fire would have caught them in the chaparral and they wouldn't have had a chance. But he was afraid of the road, of all those _gringo__ police and firemen, and he was guilty and scared and ashamed and all he could think of was making it to that peak where they'd be safe. He'd been stupid. Panicky and stupid. But now the fire was back in its lair, at least till morning, and they were in the middle of nowhere and America lay beside him like a shadow, crying out with pain every few seconds. What now? What next? They didn't even have water.
    “I'm afraid,” América said for the second time that day, her voice