Free Again

The van crashed about a mile east of the Border Patrol station near Sierra Blanca.  I don't know what happened since I was sitting in the celled-off section in the far back with a black hood over my head.  I just felt the van lurch left then right before tipping far right and careening into the desert off the highway.  Although the full weight of my body thudded into the grated bars in front of me, miraculously, I wasn't hurt.  My first thought was to pull the hood off my head, but try doing that with your hands cuffed together to the belt around your waist.  Somehow, though, I was able to crane my neck down just enough to hook the edge of the fabric with my thumb, and drawing my head back turtle-like I slipped out of the hood.

I saw right away that the two BookForce marshalls were dead--or, at least, knocked cold--and the force of the impact had loosened the bars between us so that I could crawl into the front compartment and search for the keys that would set me free.  I found them in the pocket of the passenger-side marshall, and with little trouble opened the cuffs and the belt.  I figured I had just enough time to change shirts with the marshall behind the wheel, who was closer to me in size, but that turned out to be harder than getting out of bondage.  Still, I managed to unbutton his pale-blue dress shirt, get it off of him and put it on myself in what seemed like under a minute.  It was easier to get him into my shirt--a white tee with one of those round, red circles with a diagonal line through it, the universal symbol for a BookForce prisoner--and I was just crawling out the driver-side window when a Good Samaritan pulled up.

He was a friendly-looking guy with an expression of genuine concern on his dough-boy face, and without thinking I said, "The best thing you can do for me is drive ahead to the Border Patrol station and tell them about the accident.  Tell them two BookForce marshalls are escorting a prisoner--but I think my partner and the fugitive are both dead."

On hearing the word "dead" he made a beeline back to his ruby-colored Crown Vic and peeled out onto the highway.  I immediately headed north into the desert, not turning around to look until I had traveled at least a mile.  From a slight rise in the flat plane of parched land I saw that a few other cars had stopped near the overturned van.  Then I got going again, and it didn't seem like I took a breath of air until I was headed up Sunset Road in Sierra Blanca.