Phil Lewis: A life and death journey in the desert of Arizona

It's marked by a wire cross no more than 10 inches tall. It appears to have been fashioned from a coat hanger.

Pilgrims passing on foot pay homage by leaving small stones and assorted tokens.

There's a large, red artificial flower and a stuffed, pink toy in the shape of a bunny. A rosary of plastic beads hangs from a thin mesquite branch stuck in the ground.

Also left in tribute is the desert's most valuable commodity -- water. Three plastic, 12-ounce, Vasari-brand bottles stand upright near the cross.

I'm told the cross marks a one-time grave, possibly that of a young girl judging by the color of the stuffed toy. But, my sources don't really know.

The shrine is the work of people unknown and mostly unseen -- men, women and children who walk the desert at night to escape detection as well as the hot sun.

They come from Mexico, 60 miles to the south, and they are bound for jobs in the United States, including Naples, Immokalee, Bonita Springs and other parts of Southwest Florida. Each year, hundreds don't make it. They die in the desert. The Tucson Citizen, one of two daily newspapers serving the area, put the death toll at 268, just for the first six months of this year.

I'm in the desert as a guest of Humane Borders, a non-profit group that for three years has been sending out trucks each morning to refill 50-gallon, bright-blue, plastic water barrels. These remote water stations are marked by small flags placed on limber 15-foot poles that wave in the desert breeze.

On this day, the volunteers and the truck traveled 100 miles to refill two stations -- one on the boundary of the Tohono O'odham Nation, an Indian reservation, and the other stuck among the tall saguarro cactus in what's known as the Ironwood Forest.

The truck's only other stops are to pick up litter, which is why we paused at the shrine. The desert travelers tend to jettison clothes, wrappers, cans, plastic bottles and backpacks during their trek, especially at rendezvous sites near Interstate 10, where they catch rides east or west with "coyotes," slang for those who make money by offering bus or van transportation once the illegal border crossing is accomplished.

At one site we found two dozen backpacks, the kind your child takes to school. The owners of the packs apparently were told they couldn't bring them on the bus ride.

The volunteers are careful to do only two things -- refill water tanks and pick up litter. Interaction with the desert travelers is taboo, unless the volunteers come across a severe medical emergency. First aid can be offered, but transportation to a hospital or emergency clinic is left to others -- local law enforcement, ambulance services or the U.S. Border Patrol.

Humane Borders stresses neutrality, knowing that the flow of undocumented workers into the United States is a political football. If volunteers give a traveler a lift, that neutrality is compromised and politics enter the equation, threatening donations and support for the water missions.

The philosophy seems to attract volunteers from both the right and the left.

The day of my trip, the truck driver was a retired Arizona state policeman, who at one point during our ride opined it's too bad we're losing soldiers in Iraq, but President Bush did the right thing in unseating Saddam Hussein. In the backseat of the crew-cab truck was a volunteer in his 50s who does woodworking and computer repair. He let the bumper stickers on the back of his car do his talking: "Oil companies are making a killing in Iraq" and "Peace is Patriotic." The whole issue of what's right and what's wrong in this symbiotic relationship between illegal foreign workers and the U.S. economy isn't a subject of debate during the water mission.

"Our job's to keep people from dying," the driver said. "We're just trying to keep people alive."

Phil Lewis is editor of the Daily News; his email address is pplewis@naplesnews.com.