Behind him, the trucks were coming on, and in front of him, he could see three Border Patrol trucks parked on the highway, with a patrolman standing behind the hood of each one, looking out over the field. Each one with a rifle. He could easily shoot one of them, but then he’d be dead.
Between himself and the highway, down to his right, he could see two long cigar-shaped white tanks that probably held propane. Off to his left he could see a white house, two stories high with a red roof, and behind it, a water tower.
The thing that most interested him, though, was what looked like a border fence and trees by the house to his left. The trees led all the way from the line of trees that he was in, to the highway. There were possibilities that way, but none the other. He went left—he couldn’t stand, the trees weren’t thick enough, but he could duckwalk, which was a lot better than crawling, and it was only forty or fifty yards.
Again, his hands and arms were burning with burrs and thorns, and he could feel them poking through his sweat-soaked shirt into his chest. He tried to ignore them but couldn’t, not the ones in his hands, and he stopped long enough to pull them out.
A minute later, he was at the intersection of his line of trees, with the trees and fence going out to the highway. He made the turn and, moving with glacial slowness, crossed over the wire fence and let himself down into the yard of the red-roofed house. Anyone looking out a window could see him; he hoped they wouldn’t do that.He moved forward along the fence line, and a few minutes later, he was at the highway.
He couldn’t cross it: too many people could see him, and there was no cover whatever on the far side. But the house had a white stucco wall along the front of the lot. If he crawled north along it, he would be looking into a parking lot with a half dozen cars right across the fence.
—
LUCAS HADreoriented the line of trucks to move diagonally northeast through the field. When Lucas had nearly gotten himself shot, the shooter must have been at the northeast side of the big field. They were moving straight toward it, on a hundred-yard front, as they’d done with Darling, but nothing was moving.
They were approaching the line of artworks/bunkers. Whatever else they might be, they were also perfect firing platforms. When they’d gotten to them, with no sign of life, Lucas got the sniper to climb atop one of them, where he could see down the arc of bunkers that extended to the south.
“If anything moves, nail it,” he told the patrolman.
On the far side of the bunker, he could see a fairly substantial line of trees a hundred yards away.
To the patrolman coordinating the trucks, he said, “I’ll bet he’s in the trees. I’m going to take a couple of guys and go over and work through there. You finish sweeping the field, and if you don’t flush him, turn around and back us up.”
“You take care,” the patrolman said.
“Yeah, and you, too,” Lucas said.
Lucas got two volunteers and as the trucks spread out for another sweep, Lucas and the other two men stayed behind them until they could step into the trees. The trees thinned to the south and were more widely spaced, so they turned north.
“Like this,” Lucas said to the other two. “Always keep a tree directly in front of you. When you get to it, stop moving, keep your rifle up, check out the area in front of you, looking around from behind the tree. When you think it’s safe, say so, and the next guy will move past you. Don’t ever go more than ten or fifteen feet at a time, so if the shooter pops up, the guy in back will take him out. Got it?”
They got it, and they began working their way north. They’d gone only a short distance when they came to a fence and a thinner line of trees, leading out to the highway, past a red-roofed house.
“What do you think?” Lucas asked, his voice quiet. “Go north, or out to the highway?”
One of the patrolmen said, “The trees look like they’re getting thicker the further north they go. If he sticks inside of them, he’ll eventually get back to town.”
“He’ll have to cross a street to do that,” the other one said.
“Yeah, but the sun will be down in fifteen minutes and it’ll get dark quick. Once it’s dark, he could get lost in town,” the first one said.
“The thing is, he probably doesn’t know where the trees lead,” Lucas said. Then he said, “Look, you two go on, in the trees. Really careful. I’m going to take a quick jog out to the highway. If there’s nothing out there, I’ll be right back. Don’t shoot me when I come back.”
“Let me call everybody and tell them what you’re doing,” one ofthe patrolmen said. He took a radio out of a vest pocket, made the call, describing Lucas: “Doesn’t have a hat, he’s in a light-colored shirt, and he’s wearing a vest.”
When he’d finished the call, they all agreed that they’d all be careful. Lucas climbed the wire fence and began moving out to the highway, while the two patrolmen pushed farther north in the trees.
—
POOLE HADcrossed the fence on the north side of the red-roofed house’s front yard, and sat only partially concealed by a clump of weeds. He’d been moving for a long time, and now, sitting still, his major sensory input was himself: he stank.
Ahead of him, not more than ten or twelve yards away, several cars were parked outside a low building with a sign that said “El Cósmico.” He realized that he’d managed to run in a circle, that he was back to the hippie place with the teepees and weird trailers.
There was no traffic on the highway, which had apparently been blocked at both ends of the gunfight. He needed one of those cars and he needed the driver, because he needed the driver’s keys. If he could grab a driver, he could force him into his car, hit him on the head with his.40, shove him onto the floor. The cops would have to open the highway when it got dark, they couldn’t keep it closed forever.
If he could hold out until then.
And he saw a single driver come out of the El Cósmico place, walking toward the cars in front of him. He set his rifle aside, slipped out the.40, waited. She was walking to a car almost directly in front of him. Perfect. The nearest Border Patrol car was a hundred yards away, and if he did it quickly and quietly...
