When you live in the desert, there is no sound sweeter than the gurgle of water—whether from a spring, a river, a pipe, a bottle, or even a 55-gallon water barrel like those we refill as volunteers with Humane Borders. It’s that deep-throated rolling sound that announces the flow of water from one place to another. A crisp sound, a cheerful woofling, a clear and noisy slurping that invites curiosity and excites desire. You are alive.

When you hear water flowing, there’s something inside all of us that tells you that you must go investigate, find the source. It’s a primal response to the sound of a life-sustaining substance. Trickling, swishing, spurting, gushing, guggling, dripping, sloshing, splashing. It’s alluring and enticing. Out in the desert, water is an elusive temptress because it is a part of our human essence. That’s why Jeff and I volunteer to support a network of several dozen Humane Borders water stations in the Arizona desert—to preserve human lives.

Jeff and I have been doing this humanitarian work for years. We share a compassion for those seeking refuge from violence in other countries and can’t sit by knowing that so many are dying on our doorstep. As Jeff often says: “How can we feel any peace when we have so much, and others have so little?” We’re unapologetic desert rats and humanitarian activists, and this love of arid lands and our empathy for desperate migrants is what motivates us to volunteer for these water runs.

Like most days when we do this humanitarian work, we are up early—5:00 a.m.—to head down together in his truck to the Humane Borders truck yard in South Tucson to begin our weekly water runs to the remote areas of the Sonoran desert southwest of town. We’re morning people anyway, but we start early to avoid the extreme heat of the afternoons. At this hour, it is cold even here in the desert, so I nurse my coffee like it’s a lifeline while Jeff drives. I know it will be a long day ahead. When we arrive, there is a lot to do to get ready.

“Do you have the keys for the gate? I think I left mine in my other pack,” I inform Jeff.

“Yep. But my gate key is always a bit stubborn when it is so cold. I’ll need your help to pry it open.”

We enter the truck yard at the House of Neighborly Service in south Tucson through a side gate with a simple combination lock but then have a series of other gates which require multiple keys to gain access to the truck yard. The biggest challenge is usually the large metal gate with a steel security bar—in the cold, that lock is cantankerous even in the best of times. Jeff fumbles with the lock but finally gets it open, and we remove it using a handy lever hanging by a cable for just that purpose. Then we make sure the truck is ready for the day—tires inflated, two extra barrels, extra flags and flags poles, a full tank of gas, food and bottles of water for migrants who we might encounter, GPS tracker, bung wrench, water tester, a suite of tools, Our Lady of Guadalupe and water (agua) stickers for the barrels. We start the truck to warm up before we head out toward Sells, the heart of the Tohono O’Odham reservation west of Tucson on the US Highway 86 towards Ajo, where we will turn south to Sasabé at Robles Junction onto Highway 286.

Satisfied that we have everything we need since the last volunteers used this truck, we roll out of truck yard at 6:00 a.m. sipping on coffee and rubbing our hands together until the truck heater gets working enough to warm the inside cab. Jeff and I have done this trip so many times (me for 11 years, Jeff for 6), it seems natural, and the routine is always the same at the yard. But out in the desert, we never know what to expect. Vigilantes, armed militia-like members of Arizona Border Recon or Veterans on Patrol, desperate migrants, imposters posing as injured migrants, Border Patrol, hunters, or news crews.

Jeff and I met several years ago on an archaeological trip to Casas Grandes just south of the U.S. border near Douglas. He is a taciturn guy, not given to a lot of chitchat, but focused on our work. He wears the same uniform each time we’re out: brown shorts, a ball cap, Humane Borders T-shirt, and hiking boots. His sunglasses always have a leash. A former tech guy from Boulder, Colorado, he is an outdoor enthusiast and volunteers with the Forest Service as well, serving as a trail ranger in nearby Pima Canyon.

“Do you think we’ll run into any vigilantes today?” Jeff wonders aloud. We’ve had so much vandalism on our water stations that encounters have spiked in the months since the election. There are more vigilantes and militia members than we saw any time during the Biden administration or even the first Trump administration.

“Probably,” I hazard to guess. “Seems like their presence has increased even though the numbers of crossers have declined. I just as soon not have that experience today, thank you!”

We do these regular water runs to the desert each week, bringing hope and life in the form of water to this deadly torrid landscape. Today, we will be heading into the Altar Valley, a long open landscape dominated by the Baboquivari mountains and its namesake Baboquivari Peak, the holy mountain of the Tohono O’odham nation. This valley is home to the Buenos Aries National Wildlife Refuge as well as numerous private ranches. Brawley Wash drains the mountain ridges and flows north, making for a perfect clandestine migrant route where it is easy to hide from Border Patrol in the arroyo that is carved below the flood plain by seasonal monsoon rains. Our barrels are purposely located in key places throughout the valley along Brawley Wash, spaced about seven miles apart from each other to create linked pathways to roads.

I got involved with Humane Borders after reading and hearing about all the people dying in the desert west of Tucson. I was appalled at what I learned and realized that I couldn’t live in Tucson in good conscience knowing that so many people were dying outside our doors from lack of water. I found Humane Borders and liked their mission and approach—permanent water stations with permission from the landowners. I recruited Jeff after he heard my stories about these water runs and asked if he could help. To the other border activists, we’re just OWLS—Old White Liberals. Guilty as charged. Jeff and I have been political activists for most of our lives. And we’ve been friends for so long, I can’t remember which one of us is the bad influence.

Our drive takes us past “Tinys” biker bar, on past the San Xavier Indian Reservation, past Ryan Airfield, and into an expanse of undeveloped desert north of the Sierrita Mountains. After 25 miles, we turn south at Robles Junction and head towards Sasabé, the scant border town and the official port of entry on the border with Mexico forty-five miles south.

We’re both reserved individuals, so we don’t chatter that much as we drive, especially so early in the morning. We need our coffee before we can get very animated. And we don’t play the radio—we need to be listening to the desert for signs of life, injured migrants or other disturbing sounds. We also need to listen to the truck—breakdowns are common given the amount of use and the terrain these vehicles must endure. Flat tires are most common. You must be listening all the time.

History permeates the landscape where we are headed on today’s water run—you can see it and feel it. The history feels musty but fresh at the same time. Just outside Sasabe and only yards from “The Wall” on the U.S. side lies Rancho de la Osa, formerly the headquarters of a 12-million-acre Spanish land grant concession on stolen land from the Indigenous people. Some buildings date to the 17^th century. It was here at this ranch in the late 1940s that William L. Clayton, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in the Truman administration, worked out the fifteen points of the Marshall Plan to save Europe after World War II. Petroglyphs made by ancient peoples decorate Mirador Canyon’s walls to the west; dissolving adobe homesteads dot the slopes and valleys. Evidence of mining—test pits, adits, sluices, tailing piles—abide to the hopes and aspirations of past generations. The landscape is suffused with narratives of the past.

Soon enough, we turn off the paved road and onto a dirt road to the first barrel we need to check, passing through a series of gates on our way to the Jackalope station. Every HB water station has a name which cannot be used to identify its geographic location to prevent vigilantes from easily finding their locations. Even before we arrive, we look for the flag on top of a thirty-foot pole to alert us to whether the station has been vandalized. If the flag is missing or bent, we know that something has been going on.

To get to this station, Jeff and I have driven a rough, rock-filled and rutted four-wheel drive road for about five miles. Fortunately, it hasn’t rained for a while; otherwise the road would be mucky with impassable gumbo. There are times when we cannot do these runs because of the condition of the roads after summer rains.

Once we arrive, we get out of the truck and approach the barrel to see if it still has water. We take a water sample and test it for purity and cleanliness. Then, we unscrew the bung and do a visual inspection of the inside.

“Looks like we are down about 20 gallons,” Jeff says. “We better fill it back up.”

“Any sign of algae growth inside? Or dirt,” I ask.

“Nothing I can see,” he replies. “I’ll get the pump started if you want to hold the hose.”

We get the barrel topped off, inspect the flagpole, and decide our work is done here and head off to the next water station. We thread our way through creosote, mesquite and catclaw, driving another rough, rocky road for another couple of miles to Polaris, our next station.

The desert is gorgeous in the morning hours. We get out and admire the vistas. Baboquivari, the sacred peak where I’itoi the Creator and Elder Brother of the Tohono O’Odham people lives in a cave, dominates this landscape. It’s an iconic peak of polished granite that resembles the dome of a cathedral. In the middle of the mountain range. The peak can be seen from as far away as Tucson. Ragged, desiccated crags and spires along the ridgeline tower above the numerous bajadas (extensive alluvial fans), dominating a dry desert expanse seemingly without end. Our blue HB shirts (“Fronteras Compasivas”) match the sapphire sky and belie the blue mood that can descend upon us while doing this work.

Shading our eyes against the glare of the early morning sun under an enormous high-vaulted sky, refulgent light glints off a sea of auburn grasses in the nearby wildlife refuge making it hard to see what or why. It’s still early morning in southern Arizona, but even now a white-hot sky spreads out above us, portending another blistering, scorching, sunny day. All around us, wind, rain, and time have sculpted an alien landscape that is rugged and rocky beyond belief. A lone turkey vulture, distinct with its small barren red head, takes flight from the crook of a many-armed saguaro, gliding and tilting a few feet above the ground, looking for carrion or worse. This is a land of death and mourning that sings the blues when the wind blows, broadcasting a sorrowful tune for miles.

Standing beside our truck listening for sounds of life, it is deathly quiet except for the whistle of a lone Gila woodpecker sitting atop a spindly ocotillo nearby.

“I think it’s going to rain.” Jeff thinks he can feel it in the air. If so, it would be a rare moment here in the Sonoran Desert in March. We both gaze off to the west, looking for signs of moisture.

I’m not so sure. “It hasn’t rained for weeks. Why now?” Above Baboquivari Peak, though, we can see some gathering clouds. Maybe… but doubtful. In the desert, it is easy to get seduced by illusions.

Despite the extensive vistas, there is no water in sight save for the 350-gallon tank on our flatbed pickup and these water barrels we have come to check. Since there are few viable rivers or lakes in the Altar Valley, our scattered water stations may be the only reliable water for miles in this sere landscape. We place barrels along known migrant routes, and we hope migrants can find them in time of dire need. Perhaps our blue flags atop the thirty-foot poles and the solar lights will help them find our barrels.

Since 1994, the U.S. policy of “prevention through deterrence” has created a humanitarian crisis. Operation Blockade, Operation Gatekeeper, Operation Hold the Line, and other policies have driven people who are refugees from violence, extortion, political upheavals, the impacts of NAFTA, CAFTA, and climate change to seek safety by forcing them to cross through some of the most dangerous, inhospitable terrain in North America. None of us can imagine how bad your life must be to walk 2,000 miles with your children to escape it. You don’t leave home unless home is the mouth of a shark.

As a result, our policies have redefined what in the past was essentially an administrative infraction to now a criminal act by “illegals”—a pejorative, demeaning, inaccurate and stigmatizing label meant to create panic and fear with the public. Ironically, the “illegality industry” (like Core Civic and other private prisons) feeds on the illegality it was meant to control. Sadly, this illegality industry has only produced more and increasingly distressing forms of illegality. The border industrial complex generates its own feedback loop, reinforcing the criminalization of unauthorized migration, and building momentum for bloated budgets to fund more prison beds, more border agents, more remote technology, more roads, and more spending. As a result, our immigration policies have created a profit-driven carceral archipelago of prisons, detention centers and “black op sites” where human rights are violated, international treaties ignored, and people are disappeared. Witness the recent effort sending Venezuelans to notoriously harsh prisons in El Salvador and the kidnapping of Americans off the streets and from places of employment.

***

Water in the Sonoran desert is a rarity, priceless and elusive. Less than six inches of rain falls annually in most of the area. Some months, it never rains at all. While rain can vivify the barren surface, the effect is ephemeral and usually of little help to migrants. Despite the sere environment, the Sonoran desert is one of the most diverse in the world. Creosote, mesquite, palo verde (Arizona’s state tree), yucca, brittlebush, and other desert plants have adapted to thrive and survive in this landscape. Likewise, Gila monsters, rattlesnakes, javelina, coyotes, deer, antelope, jackrabbits, and numerous birds all thrive and survive the vicissitudes of temperatures and rainfall here. People? Not so much.

It is so dry in the desert that there is no smell, except for dust. The parched desert around us crackles with the brittleness of pretzels left out too long in the sun. Leaves shatter and twigs snap, crinkling and popping like potato chips. The gravel beneath our boots sounds like we’re walking on thin shards of broken glass. Lips crack, sweat never appears, but salt lines form on our clothes anyway, and eyes don’t water.

If you want to know about water—to really understand it—you need to come to the desert. In deserts, water is primordial, immutable, sacrosanct. Desert water is an existential elixir so precious it will burn a hole in your conscious and soul. Not surprisingly, desperate, thirsty people go to extremes to get water—hacking into barrel cacti under the fantasy that gallons of water are hidden within, or digging holes into dry stream beds, or sucking on twigs and leaves, or drinking their own urine. Little wonder why so many desert travelers fantasize about “agua dulce” and stagger desperately toward illusory mirages of lakes while on the verge of death. Lust drives them towards a dream built on desert deceptions.

Water is out there somewhere, but it is hard to find, skulking beneath the surface of dry arroyos, tucked into crevices well out of the sun, or shimmering in ephemeral tiñajas (rock depressions that capture rainwater). Even deeper, hiding beneath desert mountain ranges, alluvial basins from Nevada to Mexico hold more than four trillion cubic feet of water. But it can’t be seen and it’s hard to get. As Charles Bowden knew, the desert is a land of hidden waters.

The desert will school you in the secret knowledge of water but only if you pay attention and know where to look. After all, Arizona is where rivers go to die. Just ask them: the Colorado, the Gila, the Santa Cruz, the San Pedro, the Hassayampa, the Salt. These major rivers are now mere trickles of their former selves. Even the mighty Colorado River which carved the Grand Canyon now barely provides more than a salty trickle to the Gulf of California. Hard to fathom today, but river boats once paddled up the Gila River east of Yuma. But dams, siphoning off water for irrigation, dropping water tables and years of drought have all combined to impact the flows of these once mighty rivers. As a result, most Arizona rivers are empty of water except during the monsoon season when extreme rain events (like Noah’s deluge) create flash floods. Most of the time, though, the few rivers left with any water, like the San Pedro that the Coronado expedition followed, are on life support in Mother Nature’s ICU, in danger themselves—like migrants—of expiring from lack of water.

***

Deserts are lands of dual extremes: you can just as easily die of thirst or drown. Monsoon flash floods frequently kill motorists who try to cross highway dips during rainstorms, flipping their cars and flushing the occupants downstream in a slurry of mud and trees.

The lack of water can also be just as life-threatening. Stop drinking water and see how hard it is to sustain a coherent thought and then, days later, how hard it is just to stay alive. To slake your lust for water, your search can drive you insane. At first, the need for water is a psychological pain, but shortly a physical torment creeps up on you like a silent predator. It can drive you so crazy that you die of something other than dehydration—hallucinations, walking in circles, stripping off all your clothes, falling down, crawling on hands and knees, eating sand in the delusion that this will quench your thirst. Dehydration makes you irrational. Some migrants hang themselves rather than face such a painful end. Death by dehydration is a dry crucifixion. Not surprisingly, Arizona is a land of open graves, a vast boneyard—of rivers, springs, but, more importantly, of people who have tried and failed to cross the desert in search of a better life.

When someone is dying of thirst, the search for water becomes an all-consuming ordeal. Water becomes your new best friend, a favorite uncle, a loving grandmother. Water is your long-lost child that you long to embrace and smother with kisses. If you find it, you’d cry tears of joy except for the fact that your body lacks sufficient liquid to weep.

Not only are deserts extreme environments, but deserts also attract extremists. For some people, particularly vigilantes and members of right-wing militia groups, water is a privileged commodity that should be denied to migrants. As a result, the Sonoran Desert has become a battleground patrolled by paramilitary, self-appointed citizen cabals. Our water stations are regularly vandalized, armed vigilantes roam the terrain looking for migrants to intimidate, abuse and arrest, our volunteers are prevented from refilling depleted barrels, hikers and elderly bird watchers are harassed as agents of the bleeding-heart “Libtards” (why else would they have binoculars?). Militia groups block roads, refusing to let us pass, demanding to see our permits to be out there on our mission of mercy. Occasionally, Humane Border volunteers are surrounded and threatened by masked and armed groups. The intimidation is palpable—mirrored sunglasses, AR-15 rifles, camo clothing, bandoliers of bullets, black leather jackboots, video cameras, even drones flying overhead to capture the moment.

“Stop what you’re doing right now. You’re no better than getaway car drivers at a bank robbery. Aren’t you ashamed? You’re ruining this country by luring people—drug dealers, rapists, criminals—to Arizona with false promises of fresh water in the desert. You don’t even have permission to be out here doing this.”

“Fine,” I respond. “Let’s call 911 and find out.” One of them raises his rifle when I reach for my phone. I demure. “OK—why don’t you go ahead and call?” I can’t tell if he smiles or grimaces. I suppress a laugh. And then we wait in silence.

We want to respond to their accusations, but we don’t because we don’t want anything we might say taken out of context and edited into a video that could be used to bolster their cause or present Humane Borders are something we are not. Instead, we look at the ground, shuffle our feet, waiting for them to get bored with our refusal to engage. It happens after a time but not soon enough. The waiting seems interminable. Eventually, after a period of bullying, we are told to leave…”or else,” is the implication. All for trying to save lives.

Unfortunately, the locks on our water barrel’s bung holes to prevent tampering with the water haven’t solved all our vandalism problems. Vigilantes like those from Veterans on Patrol or Arizona Border Recon shoot our barrels, kick off the spigots so the water drains out, punch holes with knives, screwdrivers, or even portable drills, or just open the spigots to drain the barrels until nothing is left, and then walk away. Vigilantes have also broken the flagpoles and destroyed the blue flags flying the logo of a water spigot (the international symbol of water), making it even more difficult for migrants to find our water stations. The depravity is depressing.

As we make our weekly water runs, checking our barrels at seven stations today, we are constantly on the lookout for migrants and vigilantes—the former to help, the latter to avoid. We rarely encounter migrants though on our water runs unless they want to be found—exhausted, lost, dying of thirst, they ask us to call the Border Patrol so they can be taken in. Better that than dying. Some ask for directions; others want food more than water. Otherwise, most stay hidden so they can continue their journey into El Norte. Some migrants leave behind tokens of thanks—coins, a rosary, a hastily scribbled note held down by a rock on top of the barrel, a card with a prayer. Tokens of gratitude from those with so little to give and so much to lose.

***

Since 2000, more than 4,400 people have perished in Arizona’s deserts (every 2 days human remains are found), and those are just the ones we know about. Many more have died from exposure and dehydration but remains are never found. Their deaths are horrific, a torture appalling yet all too commonplace. Even more gruesome is their dismemberment and decomposition after death. In just a few hours in the desert sun, the corpse swells and bloats, and the body’s skin blackens like grilled meat on a barbeque. The soft tissues and eyes are the first to go. Coyotes, fox, and eagles rend skin, rip clothes, tear at intestines, and scatter bones. Quickly, the flies, beetles and maggots go to work. Scavengers like vultures descend on the rest. In only 24 hours, eight vultures can completely skeletonize a human body. All that remains are some strips of clothing, maybe the carpet shoes worn to elude trackers, a day pack with a flip phone, toothbrush, a comb, photos of loved ones, an identification card.

In as little as a month, little remains except a few long bones. It is astounding how quickly human bodies left out in the desert descend into the necrobiome. Its custodial staff operates with uncanny efficiency and skill, breaking everything down to its smallest constituents. On the surface, winds scatter the rest. Southern Arizona is a necrophage paradise, and sadly an invisible monument to the missing and departed. Out here in the Sonoran desert, vultures stand watch as merchants of death, wearing the blue-black patina of the undertaker’s clothes.

Arizona’s deserts have become an extensive killing field, yet it is a necropolis to human remains that never really disappears. Scientists tell us that the atoms and molecules of bodies persist, but only move around, to be reconstituted, reintegrated, and rearranged. The “matter,” the essence of human bodies, never vanishes. It scatters on the landscape, strewn haphazardly.

Water is essential to life, and since our bodies are sixty percent water, we rely on water to maintain our essence. In addition to water, though, almost every part of the human body contains salt which is necessary to the functioning of cells. Salt is the only family of rocks eaten by humans, and the chloride it contains is necessary for respiration and digestion. Tears are salt and water. Sweat and urine, too. Without both water and salt, cells could not get nourishment and would die of dehydration—just like the person they comprise.

Christina Sharpe recounts how in the ocean, the sodium of human blood from slave bodies thrown overboard from ships in transit to the Americas centuries ago has a residence of 260 million years. Likewise, sodium from decomposing bodies in the desert endures and doesn’t disappear either. Think about it: as you walk through the desert on your family jaunt to a favored canyon or spring, you are likely treading on the molecules and atoms of thousands of deceased people whose remains have been broken down by decomposers but are never really gone. Even the footings of Trump’s “great big, beautiful wall” is fashioned from the long dead chemical signature of migrants who perished crossing the border. In more ways than one, it is a wall of death.

Water makes extreme environments tolerable—at least for a short time. But the heat and aridity always return. At Humane Borders, we attempt to bridge the dry periods with our water stations. No one deserves to die in the desert. No one.

***

Standing there at the Jackelope station, Jeff and I hear the muttering of thunder in the distance. The wind is now rising and has a nasty, threatening whine to it. We turn faces to the west and see the lace of virga descending—enticing us into believing that rain will come, but it is just another desert mirage. It never reaches the ground, dying in the dry air.

The desert is a mute witness to many other acts of dying. It holds onto its secrets, reticent to let go or even whisper a few clues. And yet it moans and groans as the winds blow with the approaching storm, as if burdened by these secrets. The desert would weep for us if only there was enough water.

Our humanitarian tasks completed after we top off the last barrel and straighten the flag pole, Jeff and I get back in the truck and start the drive home, his grey hair billowing out of his hat like the clouds above us.

“Let’s get going before it rains and makes these roads impassable,” Jeff offers. I agree.

For Jeff and me, and all the other humanitarian volunteers on the border, our work is not drudgery. While our tasks may seem like a Sisyphean routine, we are convinced that one day the U.S. will again welcome strangers to our borders (“your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free”) rather than killing them because we can. Someday, we hope, the government will stop using the desert to do this killing, using it as a ruse for “prevention by deterrence” to obscure our complicity in creating a cemetery of open graves. It’s barbaric, inhumane, and vicious. As a nation, we can—and will—be better than this…someday.

Driving the last roads home, we are pleasantly surprised when a light rain begins to fall—at first, a few scattered, random small drops on our windshield, followed by a gentle, scattered mist, glossing the desert vegetation. Suddenly, the desert is redolent in one of the most distinctive and well-loved smells found in the desert—the earthy, musty aroma of creosote and dust.

Tears from heaven, tears of sorrow, Baboquivari blues. We know it won’t last—the dry, deadly heat will return—as will the migrants. Nothing will stop them—not the heat, not the vigilantes, not even a wall.