Hunter spotted their pursuers. Suretta pushed her people and they were closing the gap, fast. “Let’s go,” she said, and she and Kelly helped Ike to his feet. Car traffic passed on the highway nearby, with the drivers running above the speed limit, cheating the time a little to get where they were going. She told Ike and Kelly to go ahead, that she would bring up the rear. When she looked for Suretta, Hunter was shocked to see how near they were.
She touched Ike on the shoulder, “Let’s go, they’re close.” Leading them to, and across the highway when no traffic was visible put them facing another fence, but one that sagged, so the three of them had no trouble crossing. They moved across the small limestone hills, through prickly pear clumps and cedars, keeping the bushy cedars between them and Suretta.
Ike began breathing hard almost immediately. “Stay with us, Ike,” Hunter said. Kelly took his right arm to assist him as they crossed rocky ground that could twist an ankle in one wrong step.
Leading them over a low shoulder of the ridge left them looking down on a small cemetery, and beyond that, a small cluster of houses and apartments.
Stumbling twice, Ike reached deep inside to keep up with the two women. When they neared the cemetery and its trees, Hunter spotted a neat pile of recently cut limbs from them where someone pruned the trees to make the place more appealing.
She said, “Ike, I have an idea.” She led him to the pile, then worked fast to open a space under it. “In here. We’ll come back for you.”
“I can still fight them.”
“Yes, but you can’t outrun them. Kelly and I can, and we need to get away to help Ramona and the girls, and you.”
Ike wanted to argue, but said, “Okay. But here, take the other pistol. I won’t need it in there.”
He crawled in the space as the two females layered the limbs over him, providing a well-hidden blind for Ike. “Don’t forget me,” he said.
“We won’t.” Hunter brushed out the few tracks before leading Kelly away, and their pace accelerated as they covered more level ground, going in front of the apartments. Hunter stopped Kelly before she crossed into open space, pointing to where the road went under the I-10 Interstate and into Sonora. “When we go, we’re exposed. Run fast, and as soon as you can get to the first house, cut into the alley behind it. There’s more cover there.”
“Where are we going?”
“To set up an ambush.”
“And rescue the girls, and Ramona?”
“That’s the plan.”
“How?”
“I’m g
oing to find a place to hide you, too, and not in the same place as Ike, just in case. Then I’m circling back to the airport and take the girls and Ramona from whoever’s holding them in Suretta’s car.”
“And?”
“You’ve got a lot of questions.”
“I want to help.”
“We’ll see.”
“Okay.”
Hunter draped her arm over Kelly’s shoulders, “You’ve been a big help, but now I need you to only do what I say, Okay?”
“Okay.”
“It’s going to get dangerous.”
Kelly thought of Bobbi and Consuela, both dead, and of Carl with his smell and his rough hands like sandpaper, and looked at her, “Wasn’t it already?”
Hunter nodded, “It’ll be worse now, that’s what I’m saying.”
Kelly nodded. “Whatever you want, I’ll do.”
~**~