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Story Two ~ Kathryn W e crossed the border from Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico, onto American soil. A friend and I were driving along the dark Arizona highway at midnight when suddenly lights blinded us. Big stadium lights so bright we had to lower the windshield visors. It was a Border Patrol checkpoint, rigid-faced uniformed men with guns telling us to stop. It took me back to Germany years ago. Late one night, I climbed on a platform high above the guard station, Checkpoint Charlie, in Berlin, days before the wall fell. I could look over to the other side of the Berlin Wall. Searing white lights, soldiers, guns. A no-man’s-land full of buried land mines. On this Arizona highway, I had to remind myself that this was my country; I was not in foreign occupied territory. The Border Patrol lights pooled around saguaros and creosote bushes. In the light, nothing moved but agents and the U.S. vehicles they were searching. At the edge of the circle of light was an unclaimed and absolute darkness. A few miles after leaving the checkpoint, we drove off the road and got out of the car to take a break. We leaned against the car in a desert full of rumors and shadows. Not far away, in complete silence, we saw a flashlight flicker on and off. A few minutes later and a few yards farther, again light flickered. We drove deeper into the night along the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. We passed two trucks sitting side by side in a wash, headlights off, only the wink of a cigarette lighter. A half hour later, the shapes of two men in black with backpacks trudged along the highway, ducking into shadow as our headlights lit up their eyes. On we drove into the darkness toward Tucson. ...

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