“Beasts Of The Border” ($10 in paperback from Long Creek Dutch Publishing), by former Chico City Council member Scott Huber, is a page-turner that grows in intensity, deeply compassionate and horrifyingly violent.
Solitario is moving north from southern Sonora, Mexico, in search of a mate. In Nicaragua, Pedro Lopez and his family must leave after he is threatened because his brother criticized the government. His wife had birthed three children and they had also taken on two young nephews. “Now at 24 years of age, winsome Concepción was mothering five children under the age of 10.”
Their harrowing attempt to reach the United States, thousands of miles away, including jumping on a freight train called “the beast,” brings terrible loss.
The novel also tells of two Arizona ranchers on the border. Marvin Estep “truly believed that brown-skinned people were an inferior race.” Meredith Gregg, contrariwise, “spoke fluent Spanish and was empathetic to the plight of many of the border-crossers.” It is unclear what the new border wall will mean for those fleeing from the south.
For the biologists, Ripley West and Tony Ramirez, the wall would seem to make it very difficult for wildlife to move across borders in one of the richest habitats in North America. More specifically, the two set up a series of cameras in an effort to capture images of that rarest of species, the jaguar. When Marvin mistakes Tony for a migrant, and shoots his face with birdshot, it is unclear just who the beasts are.
Huber brings nuance to the story. Border Patrol agent Sergio Jiménez, one of the “good guys,” recognizes the need for a wall “to keep my country safe from drug traffickers and terrorists and smugglers. But I see way more needy people and families crossing than criminals.”
All the storylines merge at the end in a way shaken readers will not soon forget.
