I got my discharge from Fort Irwin
Took a place on the San Diego county line
Felt funny bein' a civilian again

It'd been some time
My wife had died a year ago
I was still tryin' 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 'em home and they come right back again
Carl hunger is a powerful thing."


Well I was good at doin' 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 we'd wait out in the canyons
And try to keep 'em from crossin' the line


Well the first time that I saw her
She was in the holdin' 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 I'd lost

She had a young child cryin' in her arms
I asked "Señora is there anything I can do ?"


There's a bar in Tijuana
Where me and Bobby drink alongside
The same people we'd sent back the day before

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 searchlight's dusty glow

We'd rush 'em in our Broncos
Force 'em back down into the river below
She climbed into my truck

She leaned toward me and we kissed
As we drove her brother's shirt slipped open
And I saw the tape across his chest


We were just about on the highway
When Bobby's 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 movin'

My gun restin' 'neath my hand
We stood there starin' at each other
As off through the arroyo she ran


Bobby Ramirez he never said nothin'
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
Lookin' for my Louisa
With the black hair fallin' down