How do you survive being shot and left for dead in the Chihuahuan Desert? By being found by a beautiful wildlife photographer willing to risk her life to save yours.
A bitter ex-cop fights for his life after he runs to the sound of gunfire on the Ri...
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Character Art Designs by Dana Nicole Joiner
He stopped to rest at the base of the Mesa de Anguila, a thousand-foot limestone wall accordioned across the western horizon. Catching his breath, he leaned his sweat-soaked body against the shaded stone, lingering a long moment, savoring the cool relief.
Stepping back, he scanned the cliff's creviced face. He needed to map a way to the top, so he could hike to Lajitas. That climb would be tedious. He'd be exposed for too long.
With his pounding heart echoing inside his ears, and blood throbbing through his neck, Mendocino Jones drew in a deep breath of desert air, catching the faintest whiff of body odor. He smelled himself. They would smell him if they neared. His knees trembled as he slid onto his haunches, his back pressed against the wall.
Mendocino rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. They felt like sandpaper; seared by sun reflecting off sand, blistering from above and below as if he were on an ocean.
Squatting on his boot heels, cupping his hands over his eyes, he reminded himself, that panic will kill you. Think.
Before him sprawled the Chihuahuan desert, an unforgiving fabric of gray and tan dotted here and there with giant boulders that tumbled from atop the mesa eons earlier. The unending landscape was deceptive. It appeared empty, yet it teemed with all that is injurious. Everything out there would rip, trip, bite, or gouge. And the open desert offered no more cover than the mesa wall from the killers pursuing him.
How long until dark? He could skip a stone farther than the mesa's shadow on the desert floor. He'd have to skirt the cliff. Keep moving away from the river, where he'd blundered into madness.
As he had pulled his canoe to shore east of Santa Elena Canyon, the desert roared with gunfire. Rather than running away, Mendocino instinctively rushed toward the sound, scrambling up a rocky rise. At the crest, he froze. Maybe fifty yards ahead, gunmen encircled a woman who knelt over the body of a man sprawled on his back. She wailed like a wounded coyote, gripping the man, and shaking him as the others watched. She stood slowly, facing them, her back straight, chin high, said something Mendocino could not discern, then spat on the man nearest her. He nodded. The desert thundered with gunfire again. The woman crumbled like a handkerchief across the man on the ground.
Startled, Mendocino lost his footing on loose rock, tumbling backward in an avalanche of stones as bullets zinged around him. Like a desert hare, he zigzagged back toward his canoe, bullets whizzing so close he felt the rushing wind. The river offered no cover, so he veered, pushing west through head-high reeds, back toward the canyon, putting distance between himself and sporadic shouts and rifle fire.
Mendocino was swift of foot and mind. Not a large man, and neither was he small. An outdoorsman, broad through the shoulders, arms, and chest strong from rowing and rock climbing, hips and thighs powerful from endurance running. With bronzed skin and sun-streaked caramel-colored hair wearing a khaki shirt and trousers, Mendocino was well camouflaged in the desert. Like a puma.
At a wash, he cut north, maintaining a steady but more cautious pace, crouching to make himself as small as possible. His tracks could be followed through a dry creek bed, so instead, he hop-scotched from one large stone to another until he came to a rocky shelf. It would form a waterfall during a rare rainstorm. He crossed it, maneuvering through a barricade of lechuguilla, a dreaded agave with fishhook thorns that animals avoided. Native Americans dipped their spears in juice made from lechuguilla, paralyzing their prey. He pressed on.
Catching his breath now, squatting at the base of the mesa, Mendocino used a shredded sleeve to wipe sweat sliding down his face.
How long had passed since the gunfire? He ran his hand over his face. Time. It was so easy to lose track of, like people.
The only sounds he heard recently were his own-his clothes ripping on thorns, his increasingly labored breathing, shoes crunching on rock and sand. Surely, they had fallen behind. But instinct told him they were somewhere nearby. People like that don't give up.
Who were they? No time to think about it. He had to find help or a place to hide. Mendocino squinted, clenching and unclenching his jaw, searching the landscape.
He blinked, focusing. Was it a shadow? Was he imagining? No, it was real. A wash-out at the base of the mesa wall tucked behind a stand of lechuguilla, sotol, and creosote bush just yards ahead.
Squatting low, he duckwalked closer. The wash cut under and into the mesa. No one could see it behind that thick stand of thorny brush. A den for coyotes, bobcats, foxes? Could he fit? It could be full of snakes or scorpions. Did he want to crawl in there?
He had no choice.
With the agility of the desert cat, Mendocino leaped behind the brush, rolling under the shelf into an elongated black hole. He lay on his side, peering out, his back against cool stone. He couldn't see past the base of the desert hedge. The wallow was long and deep enough to hide his body, with shoulders tucked and knees bent. So far, no rattles or stings.
He took a deep breath and sighed, overwhelmed by relief. He was safe. For a while, at least. Who were the killers? Smugglers moving drugs or people across the border? Or both? The vision seared his brain. The woman. She was so defiant. She didn't cower and cry. She spat in the man's face. His focus had been on her, not the firing squad.
Ka-bam! Mendocino's body slammed against the back wall, his chest on fire. He gasped.
Ka-boom! Whizz! Something slashed his temple. Blood...ran...across...his face...
