The Devil's bounty

Fifty-nine

A lone cloud swept silently across the moon, plunging the land into darkness for the briefest of moments. Charlie Mendez watched it pass as the helicopter faded into the distance. The man following him was gone, swallowed by the vast landscape. He had kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other, until his pursuer had been lost in the shadows, and with him Charlie’s fear.

He had made it and now straight ahead he could see a row of low buildings. He dug into his front pocket and pulled out a roll of dollars. It was more than enough to buy him sanctuary, a place to hide out until he could be picked up. No one would ask too many questions. No one around here did. People like him, crazy gringos in trouble, simply materialized, and then they were gone.

Tired after the long trek, and on the down slope of an adrenalin rush, he started forward. Less than two hundred yards away there was a tiny one-room shack, one wall made from cinder blocks, the others cobbled together from pieces of wood with a corrugated-iron roof. A child’s bicycle lay on its side. Next to it were two large cooking pots, left out for the rats and mice to clear. Charlie picked up the bicycle and stood it up. It was too small for him even to attempt to ride it. He let it fall back to the ground.

He kept moving. There were more shacks and, beyond them, he could see lone pairs of headlights signalling a road. Sooner or later he had to find someone who could give him a ride, and if the money didn’t cut it he had a back-up plan, something he had rifled from the Escalade.