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things would change.
    The trucks have two standard features that everyone finds indispensable: a killer AC unit and a strong FM radio. With ground temperatures soaring to 130 on sunny days, and on certain nights dropping only as low as 98, the air conditioner is a lifesaver—literally. You can cool down a burning body right quick with the AC blasting, and with AC and a water jug, you can keep an illegal alive until the BORSTAR (Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue) lifesavers swoop in with their helicopters. They’re the Border Patrol’s Air Cav. Cute red T-shirts. You save the wets and the boys in red fly in and get all the glory. You crap behind a bush, trying to keep it off your shoes, but BORSTAR goes on ABC nightly news.
    As for the FM … driving 150 miles at thirty miles an hour, alone, scanning the ground for sign, is boring. Even the night runs, once your probie nerves wear off, are boring. Old boys try to liven them up for you. When you’re new, they tell you the Chupacabras is out there on Vidrios Drag, and he sucks blood from lone wanderers. Or Bigfoot’s been seen coming out of the Tinajas Altas pass. Or there are ghosts of dead walkers creeping around the Camino del Diablo. Sometimes the bastards will even sneak up on you and shout, right around 3:00 A.M. when you’re sleepy, but that’s a good way to get shot, so most of them don’t bother. The FM keeps morale elevated. Radio calls to base often have a classic rock soundtrack—Van Halen and Led Zeppelin bleed through the call-ins. Sometimes, newbies will be blasting the radio so loud they can’t hear calls from dispatch.
    “Ten, base, ten. I’m twentied at the Pinacate Lava Flow. I’M GONNA GIVE YOU EVERY INCH OF MY LOVE! Over.”
    One nonstandard lifesaver fits into the space between the base radio and the passenger seat. A roll of toilet paper. It beats a handful of cactus.
    You grab a coffee at Circle K, microwave a burrito, then cross I-8 on the old bridge and head south on 25E. To the west, 29E parallels you. It is the actual terminus of the Devil’s Highway. The twin E’s take you to the Mexican border, crossing miles of a sere and mysterious bombing range. Your ironist’s eye loves to pick out crazy things. Right near the Devil’s Highway itself is a mutated saguaro that rises ten feet into the sky. Its main body is thick, and the top is a scarred, messed-up ball of tissue. It looks for all the world like an arm raising a fist. And wouldn’t you know it, the “ears,” or branches, that stick out form an index finger and a little finger. The Devil’s Highway throws up a heavy metal devil sign to announce itself. The only thing missing is Ozzy Osbourne.
    The aforementioned Army tanks molder in the eastern end of the basin. When no one is around (and no one is ever around) you can shoot at them for fun. On the west end, under Raven’s Butte, there’s an abandoned squadron of jet fighters. Rounds penetrate their skin easily. (You can’t hardly even chip the paint off the tanks, though.) Sometimes, jet jockeys target the Border Patrol trucks and dog them from on high, vectoring in on their white roofs. Many of the Wellton guys enjoy flipping them the bird out the window, or even jumping from the truck in the middle of the faux strafing run and raising the finger at the startled pilots.
    Marine patrols training on the dirt roads interdict the sign-cutters. It’s pure bullshit—pulling an agent over at gunpoint and demanding papers. This is supposed to be America. And how dumb do the jarheads have to be to pull over a federal agent, in uniform, in a clearly marked patrol car?
    The sign announcing the advent of the Devil’s Highway has been liberally punctuated by .50 caliber machine gun rounds. Those bored jarheads again. If you’re out early, you’ll see snakes on the road, soaking up some heat. Sidewinders are fun to harass—you can pull up next to them and pour water on their heads. They have fits, but don’t know who to