I got my discharge from Fort Irwin   Took 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 Ramiraz 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 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 I 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 I took what work that I could find   At night i searched the local bars   And the migrant towns   Lookin' for my Louisa   With the back hair fallin' down