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Natividad said. "Or maybe they're just crazy. Jorge, are you sure you're okay?"
    "Yes. I just want to get the hell out of here."
    I shook my head. "We're stuck here, at least until it gets dark."
    "If the truck has even the cheapest night-vision equip-ment, the dark won't help us," Michael said.
    I thought about that, then nodded. "Yes, but it shot at us and missed. And it hasn't moved, even though two sets of people have found its hiding place. I'd say either the truck or the people in it are not in good working order. We'll stay here until dark, then we'll run. If we're lucky, no one will wander in behind us before then and give us trouble or draw the truck's attention back this way. But whatever happens, we'll wait."
    "Three people are dead," Michael said. "We should be dead ourselves. Maybe before the night is over, we will be."
    I sighed. "Shut up, Mike."
    We waited through the cool autumn day. We were lucky that two days before, the weather had turned cool. We were also lucky that it wasn't raining. Perfect weather for getting pinned down by armed lunatics.

    The truck never moved. No one else came along to trou-ble us or to draw fire. We ate the food we had brought along for lunch and drank what was left of our water. We decided that the trackers must think we were dead. Well, we were content to play dead until the sun had set. We waited.
    Then we moved. In the dark, we began to crawl toward the northward edge of our cover. Moving this way, we hoped to put so much of the big chimney between ourselves and the truck that the people in the truck would not have time to see us and open fire before we got to better cover behind the second chimney. Once we reached the second chimney, we hoped to keep both chimneys between ourselves and the im-mobile truck as we escaped. That was fine as long as the truck remained immobile. If it moved, we were dead. Even if it didn't move, there would be a moment when we were easy targets, when we had to run across open ground.
    "Oh god, oh god, oh god," Jorge whispered through clenched teeth as he stared at the stretch of open ground. If the truck managed to shoot anyone, and he saw it, he would col-lapse. So would I.
    "Don't look around," I reminded him. "Even if you hear shots, look straight ahead, and run!"
    But before we could start, the crying began again. There was no mistaking the sound. It was the open, uninhibited sobbing of a child, and this time, it didn't stop.
    We ran. The sound of the crying might help to cover any sounds we made over the uneven ground—although we weren't noisy. We've learned not to be.
    Jorge reached the smaller chimney first. I was next. Then Michael and Natividad arrived together. Michael is short and lean and looks as quick as he is. Natividad is stocky and strong and doesn't look quick at all, but she tends to surprise people.
    We all made it. There were no shots fired. And in the time it took us to reach the smaller chimney, I found that I had changed my mind about things.
    The crying had not stopped or even paused. When I looked around the small chimney toward the truck, I could see light—a broad swatch of dim, blue-gray light. I couldn't see people, but it was clear that we had guessed right. A side door of the truck was wide open.
    We were all bunched together at the smaller chimney, the others peering toward the down slope north of us. That was where they still expected to go. There was starlight enough to light the way, and I could see Jorge, bent down, his hands on his thighs as though he were about to run a race.
    The child was not sobbing now, but wailing—a thin, ex-hausted sound. Best to move before the crying stopped.
    Also best to move before the others understood what I meant to do—what I now knew I had to do. They would follow me and back me up as long as I moved fast and didn't give them time to think or argue.
    "Let's go," Michael said.
    I paid no attention. There was, I realized, a bad smell in the air, swelling and fading in the