text: I got my discharge from Fort Irwin
  Took a place on the San Diego county line
  Felt funny being a civilian again
  Itd been some time
  My wife had died a year ago
  I was still trying to find my way back whole
  Went to work for the INS on the line
  With the California border patrol
  Bobby Ramirez was a ten-year veteran
  We became friends
  His family was from Guanajuato
  So the job, it was different for him
  He said, They risk death in the deserts and mountains
  Pay all they got to the smugglers rings
  We send them home, and they come right back again
  Carl, hunger is a powerful thing.
  Well, I was good at doing what I was told
  Kept my uniform pressed and clean
  At night I chased their shadows
  Through the arroyos and ravines
  Drug runners, farmers with their families
  Young women with little children by their sides
  Come night wed wait out in the canyons
  And try to keep them from crossing the line
  Well, the first time that I saw her
  She was in the holding pen
  Our eyes met and she looked away
  Then she looked back again
  Her hair was black as coal
  Her eyes reminded me of what Id lost
  She had a young child crying in her arms
  I asked, Señora, is there anything I can do?
  Theres a bar in Tijuana
  Where me and Bobby drink alongside
  The same people wed sent back the day before
  We met there, she said her name was Louisa
  She was from Sonora and had just come north
  We danced, and I held her in my arms
  And I knew what I would do
  She said she had some family in Madera county
  If she, her child and younger brother could just get through
  At night, they come across the levee
  In the searchlights dusty glow
  Wed rush them in our Broncos
  Force them back down into the river below
  She climbed into my truck
  She leaned toward me and we kissed
  As we drove, her brothers shirt slipped open
  And I saw the tape across his chest
  We were just about on the highway
  When Bobbys jeep come up in the dust on my right
  I pulled over and let my engine run and stepped out into his lights
  I felt myself moving
  My gun resting beneath my hand
  We stood there staring at each other
  As off through the arroyo she ran
  Bobby Ramirez, he never said nothing
  Six months later, I left the line
  I drifted to the central valley
  And took what work that I could find
  At night I searched the local bars
  And the migrant towns
  Looking for my Louisa
  With the black hair falling down