“We’re near a town called San Angelo, but I’m not sure how far it is from here.”
The black-haired woman, Kit, heard them as she approached, “You’ll go to a place where you are princesses, like in the movies.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere, except to my mom,” Consuela said.
Kit’s eyes had a cruel glint, “You don’t get a choice, girl. You’re going, all of you are going.”
“When?” Kelly asked.
“Couple days at the most.”
“Thank you.”
Kit nodded, “That’s what I like, manners.”
She went to Nadine and they began to talk.
Consuela cried, not a lot, but enough to get a mean glare from Kit. She rose and walked head-down into the barn, leaving Kelly alone outside, with the two women twenty yards away, still talking.
Kelly knew she didn’t have much time after the woman’s statement of a couple of days. She’d better count on it being soon. She studied the hills and the valley as hard as she ever studied for a test. Two large pecan trees grew at the back corner of the barn, but not anything that could help, at least so far. Still, she hoped the police would come and rescue them so she wouldn’t have to try something she wasn’t sure she could do. The thought made her stomach queasy.
Kelly returned to the barn and watched Kit and Nadine talking again, this time with the big man there, too, Carl. She went to the corner of the open door and stood where they couldn’t see her, listening, but Kelly could only catch certain words.
The three adults gathered wood from dead branches and twigs dropped from the mesquites, and started a small fire. The sun balanced on the horizon under a layer of low grey clouds that reached across the sky, bringing wind and fast cooling temperature as they advanced from the North. Kelly strained to hear what the adults said.
Kit picked up several branches as she said, “Some trouble with…load.”
Nadine said, “Border Patrol?”
“Once, and the Juarez Cartel another. They’re tr-…take over.”
The man dropped a large limb on the flames and said in his high-pitched voice, “…faster. We need to mo-…ahead of schedule.”
They turned their backs toward the barn and their hands toward the fire. Kelly couldn’t hear them after that, but she heard enough to learn they would be taken from here sooner than expected.
She motioned to the other girls, and they came to her, some faster and some slower. She said, “I just heard them say they’re going to move us very soon.”
“Where to?” The girl with freckles said.
“I don’t know.”
“It may be better than here.”
Consuela said, “It will be worse, not better. They are not good people.”
Bobbi, the tall girl, said, “I believe Consuela.”
The freckle-faced girl said, “What do we do?”
Kelly looked at each girl before saying, “We need to escape.”
“To where?”
“San Angelo is close.”
“Do you know the way?”
Kelly told a half-truth, “Not exactly, but the main thing is, we can’t stay here and be taken someplace else. We may never see our family again.”