Excerpt

"If I hadn't needed to kill some time at the end of the shift," he said, "that would've been the end of them both.”

Woman in the Well

It was near the end of shift, around 2:00 PM, a stifling mid-summer day in the Sonoran Desert. Border Patrol Agent and K9 handler Tulley was turning eastbound onto Federal Route 20, passing a triangular-shaped hill known amongst Border Patrol Agents as "Little Egypt" on the Tohono O’odham Nation. A seasoned agent, he scanned the desert brush back and forth on the roadsides. He slowly drove along the two-lane paved road, dodging frequent potholes and slowing for some horses that grazed next to the road.

As a K9 agent, he drove an unmarked F150 pickup truck. The back half of the crew cab was fitted with a kennel for his partner, Tessa, a Belgian Malinois. She paced and panted, needing a "break.” Although the shift was almost over, there was a little time, and Tulley wanted to take his dog for a walk. The Mals were notoriously high maintenance; they were good at their job but very high-strung.

He turned off onto a road known as Gravel Pit, and headed south on it, towards the foothills of the Artesa Mountains to the south and east. These "mountains" are not really that high, but very rocky and rugged, grown over with cactus, mesquite, and other desert scrub. The temperature in the shade hovered around 105; he would have to monitor Tessa carefully, as the Mals did not know when to quit, and would keep going until they became heat casualties.

The second wash south of FR20, Tulley turned eastbound into it and drove along the wash in 4x4 low. The bed of the wash had been rocky, but the rocks gave way to soft sand, and it narrowed to the point where the sides almost scraped the side view mirrors. He had been just four-wheeling but was concerned about vehicle damage now.

As the wash opened up a little, the south side towards the mountains dropped off and was now more gradual.

"I'm not sure what happened first," Tulley says, "Tessa whining, or me seeing the little girl waving me down.” At the top of the bank, a young girl, about six to eight years old in dirty jeans and a t-shirt, stood frantically waving and crying. Her long dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she called to him.

"She came down the side of the wash, sliding her way into it. My Spanish isn't great, but I could hear her saying that her mom was in trouble and needed help.” He pulled up onto more solid ground and got out, trying to calm her. "It's okay honey, we'll help your mom."

As the girl sniffled and sobbed, Tulley got Tessa out of the back and hooked up her leash. The Mal was great with kids and gave the girl a sniff. It was stifling in the wash; the normal heat was magnified here as there was no airflow. The dog led them as Tulley picked up the girl and carried her up the side of the wash. He set her down on level ground and said, "Busquemos a tu mama.” Let's go find your mom.

The kid had left clear foot sign in the dirt, and Tessa had her scent; they set out with the girl holding her hand on the dog's back, and Tulley following them.

They walked for a bit when Tessa alerted. A K9 alert can be many things, and an alert handler can tell. Some dogs might sit and some just tense up. It depends on the dog. Tessa started pulling hard towards a low, circular stone wall about three feet high. There was a rope crudely attached to a nearby tree stump, thrown over the wall and down into the well. Tessa circled around, looking at Tulley as if to say, "Right here, dad!"

He looked into the well and saw a white oval in the pitch black: a face. The young woman had planned to draw water out of the well with the bucket, but it had either fallen in or was missing. She decided to use the rope to climb down into the well and find the bucket but slipped and fell into the water. Already suffering from heat exhaustion, she had panicked when falling into the icy cold water 30 feet down, treading furiously before finding the rocky walls and drawing herself upward far enough to breathe.

In his broken academy Spanish, Tulley tried to coach her into tying the rope around herself so he could haul her out; it didn't work. She was too tired to hold on while he pulled up on the rope and kept slipping out of it. The dog was whining and the little girl was crying. Tulley was getting frustrated. He got on the radio and was able to contact a nearby Border Patrol air unit, "Foxtrot.” He guided Foxtrot in, talking him southward from Sells. Foxtrot relayed for additional help for "a woman stuck in a well," and the Tohono O'odham Fire Department was requested.

When the bird had spotted him and was overhead, some BORSTAR agents (Border Patrol EMTs with search-and-rescue training) overheard, and Foxtrot directed them in. It took a while; Tulley was worried about the woman in the well who had started out as a heat casualty but was now shivering and probably hypothermic due to being soaked in cool water 30 feet underground. Shock was a concern. He reassured the woman and the girl that help was on the way, and that she would be out soon.

"BORSTAR responded, with TO Fire," says Tulley, "they set up a pulley on a ground mount, like a sawhorse, and lowered a harness down to her.” The woman was hooked up and on her way up in no time. "Once everyone showed up, I was relegated to the sidelines.” He made sure to reward Tessa, throwing her toy and praising her in a high-pitched voice, one the dogs can understand.

"I stuck around long enough to see that the girl and her mother were reunited, then I had to get out of there. Tessa had been out in the heat for too long."

The Malinois, highly specialized and well-bred K9s, were known to succumb to heat stroke if not very closely monitored. Tessa needed to get back into the air-conditioned truck as soon as possible. As the BORSTAR agents and the firefighters tended the apparatus, and the girl hugged her mom, Tulley and his dog went back to the truck, and then home for the evening.

"If I hadn't needed to kill some time at the end of the shift," he said, "that would've been the end of them both.”