On their final evening shift, the Minutemen set up their “Bravo Line” out on King's Anvil Ranch, and another seven cars took off for their “Charlie Line”, Coleman Road. When they arrived at their usual position, three cars left to a second location—“Charlie Two”. Along with two of my close friends from home, I followed them until two of the cars turned down into a wash. “Pineapple Six” and “Scorpion”, two of the Minutemen leaders, were in the third car, and they stopped into the middle of the narrow road with apparent vehicular difficulties. We had seen this stunt before.
"Oh dear," Piña said, in his giggling drawl. "I don't know how to fix this. I'm not a mechanic." He danced around the propped hood of his vehicle. "Oh dear."
After several minutes (and Ray's very loud and very fake call to the Sheriff's Department for assistance), the two lead cars returned, and Piña’s vehicle miraculously started once again.
As the three cars took off toward the main lines, we noted that they were conspicuously empty of their passengers. So we continued on the road in search of the vanished Minutemen. They had been dressed in full camouflage, and we assumed that they were on the north side of King’s state trust land, ready to hunt some migrants.
After several minutes without any success, one of my friends heard the squawk of a walkie-talkie off in the distance. My other friend slowed down his car, and the first sat on the hood, like a tracker in the bush. After a stretch, he found some footprints along a road curling against the mountains. We ditched the vehicle and followed the footprints under a barb-wire fence. A little overzealous, we crossed it, heard a walkie-talkie at full volume, assumed that the two groups had found each other, returned to the north side of the line, and scampered up the Coyote Mountains for a better vantage point. From the heights, we spotted four Minutemen.
We watched them until nightfall, but the foothills blocked much of our view. We heard on their radios that they had detained four migrants—that they were seated in front of them. We couldn't see their detainees, and there wasn't much we could do.
Soon, the Sheriff's Department arrived and told us that we trespassing and that we had to leave immediately. We had maps of the private property and state trust land and knew that we were in the clear. Not wanting to pursue any conversation about our brief incursion onto King property, however, my friends and I left for home. The migrants apparently remained in the Minutemen's custody.
Ray arrived and remained at the scene. He reported to us that a Border Patrol vehicle entered the area but soon left, unable to find the Minutemen and migrants in the bush. He doesn't know what happened to the migrants, that is, if there were any.
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