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childhood seemed a million years ago, when I’d last camped out
under the stars. I’d never really taken any notice of the beauty and wonder of
the universe since then. For all the distance, it felt like I could reach out
and touch the moon’s surface. The thought that if Mary was looking out of our
bedroom window right now, she would be looking at the same lunar surface that I
saw, brought a tear to my eye. So near and yet so far.
    Secure in the belief that I was hidden, I
decided to rest for an hour and then check to see if my captors had called off
the search. “Rest” seemed such an odd choice of word. I might have relaxed my
body, but every sound of nature in the still of the night brought with it a
fear that they would find me.

Chapter 7
    Exhausted
    Exhaustion and
lack of sleep had taken their toll on my body and mind. My eyes opened to
daylight, throbbing feet and aching leg muscles. To think I had only had the
stamina to travel such a short distance from my captors made me want to scream,
but at least I was free... and armed. The flaring sun perched on the horizon.
Its position pinpointed the compass bearing for home. That’s when I looked down
at my feet and realized I was in a heap of trouble.
    If sunrise was around seven in the morning,
I had probably been asleep for three, or possibly four hours. Hitching a ride
seemed like a lost cause. I looked at my jeans and T-shirt caked in blood and
dust. My fingers stroked two days of facial-hair growth. I had no shoes,
revealing bloody feet, and my face was a mess with cuts and bruises. To
complete the picture, I was carrying an automatic rifle. If I came across
someone looking the way I did, I’d have stepped on the gas pedal and run them
over.
    Short of hijacking a car at gunpoint, the
only way forward was for me to set off walking and to keep behind the hedgerow.
A half-baked idea fermented that I should go back to the hacienda and
surrender. If they wanted to ransom me, maybe they would give my feet medical
attention. What they’d done to Miguel soon squashed that idea. A shake of my
head did little to remove the vision of Squat holding Miguel’s head, the scene
holding centre stage in my mind. Even the sounds of the gunshots and his pleas
for mercy played out. Miguel’s pleading and bulging eyes reminded me of what
might lie ahead if I didn’t make good my escape. It’s not that I wasn’t used to
seeing death masks. Goodness knows I’d had plenty of experience down at the
morgue and at the scenes of shootouts. Usually, there is never that connection
that I had encountered with Miguel, tenuous as it had been, with the few words
we shared. This was up close and personal.
    Rolling over, I pushed myself to my knees
and then to my feet. The vision of Miguel’s severed head was cleared from my
mind by the pain running from my feet and on up through my legs. I had probably
covered twenty yards shuffling and stumbling, using the rifle as a crutch, when
I could walk no farther and collapsed. Blisters had popped, leaving raw,
exposed flesh on the soles and heels of both my feet, and the lacerations from
my previous walk in the desert were infected. Even with the best of intentions,
moving from this spot in an upright position would have been impossible. Back
home, I would have needed a wheelchair and emergency medical treatment to get
me mobile. Likely, I needed a week’s recovery for the skin on my feet to heal
enough to allow me to walk. The idea of lying in a ditch for a week, without
food or water, until I had recovered reminded me of the desperate situation I
was in and that it would call for desperate measures.
    My eyelids were heavy, despite my having
slept. Although the hedgerow afforded some cover, the open field where I was
lying left me exposed. On hands and knees, I crawled until I reached the cover
of some bushes and a drainage ditch alongside the hedgerow. A truck thundered
past along the road. It was the first vehicle I had heard and I hoped