The Tortilla Curtain

innocuous. Still, she thought, she'd better take a tour of the grounds, just in case, and though she wanted to get home early she left the car where it stood and struck off to the south, in heels and stockings, to trace the perimeter of the property. It was a mistake. The lawn gave out less than a hundred feet from the back of the garage and a ten-foot-tall hedge of red oleander camouflaged the fact that the property sloped down into the scrub from there. She ruined a good pair of stockings pushing through the oleanders and hadn't gone five steps beyond that before she twisted her ankle in a gopher hole and damned near snapped the heel off her shoe. She saw the fence line in the distance, chain link buried in scrub so thick it was almost invisible, a meandering border that roughly followed what must have been a dry streambed and then plunged precipitously over the cliff the house commanded. Kyra leaned into a tree to remove her shoes, then turned to wade back through the oleanders to the lawn.
    That was when she noticed something moving at the base of the main lawn, sunk down out of sight of the front of the house. Buff-colored. A deer, she thought. A coyote. But the movement didn't halt or hesitate in the way of an animal, and in the next instant she watched the head and shoulders of a man appear over the rim of the slope, followed by his torso, hips and striding legs, and then a second man, close at his heels. They were Mexicans, she was sure of it, even at this distance, and the origin of the shopping cart suddenly became clear to her. She didn't think to be afraid. In her suit, the sweat beading her makeup, stockings torn and heels in her hand, she stalked across the lawn to confront them.
    When she came round the corner of the garage, they were no more than thirty feet away, arrested by the sight of the car. The taller one--he wore a baseball cap reversed on his head and had a bedroll thrust over one shoulder--had stopped short, hunched inside himself, and he'd turned to say something to the other. The second man spotted her first and she could see him flinch in recognition and mouth a warning to his companion as she turned the corner and came toward them. “What do you think you're doing here?” she cried, her voice shrill with authority. “This is private property.”
    The tall man turned his head to look at her then and she stopped where she was. There was something in his look that warned her off--this was no confrontation over a dog in a restaurant parking lot. His eyes flashed at her and she saw the hate and contempt in them, the potential for cruelty, the knowledge and certainty of it. He was chewing something. He turned his head to spit casually in the grass. She was ten feet from them and ten feet at least from the car. “I'm sorry,” she said, and her voice quavered, she could hear it herself, gone lame and flat, “but you can't be here. You're, you're trespassing.”
    She saw the look the two exchanged, flickering, electric, a look of instant and absolute accord. The nearest house was a quarter mile down the ridge, out of sight, out of hearing. She was afraid suddenly, struck deep in the root of her with the primitive intimate shock of it.
    “You own these place, lady?” the tall one said, fixing her with his steady unblinking gaze.
    She looked at him, then at the other man. He was darker, shorter, with hair to his shoulders and a silky peltlike streak of hair on his chin. “Yes,” she lied, addressing them both, trying to maintain eye contact, trying to sell them. “My husband and I do. And my brother.” She gestured toward the house. “They're in there now, making drinks for dinner.”
    The tall one looked dubiously toward the house, the great broad artifact of stone, lumber and glass that cut across the horizon like a monument to the ruling tribe, and then said something in Spanish to his companion, a quick sudden spurt of language. She wanted to break for the car, fling open the door and hit the automatic locks before they could get to her; then she could start it up with a roar and swing round in a vicious circle, jam the wheel, hit the accelerator-- “We are sorry too much,” the tall one said, and he ducked his head, false and obsequious at the same time, then came back to her with a smile. She saw false teeth, yellowed gums. His eyes bored right through her. “Me and my friend? We don't know these place, you know? We hike, that's all. Just hike.”
    She had nothing to say to