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diminished outside and the dog stopped
barking. Stretching my neck and scrambling to my feet, I closed my eyes and
listened with my back melting into the wall. I could hear the sound of engines
in the distance, but otherwise there was silence outside. One, two, three, I
counted for courage, and took a glance through the hole to the yard below and
then out into the distance. There were maybe five vehicles tearing away from
the farm, probably trucks, or open-back jeeps. Besides the headlights, beams of
lights were scouring the brush from atop of the vehicles.
    Dropping to a haunch, and thinking about
the mood they’d be in when they returned, left little to the imagination of
what they might do with me. If they had left a guard back at the farm, which
was likely, then jumping and setting the cowbells ringing wasn’t an option.
Picking up the belt, I started to flail my knees with the strap in a kind of
self-flagellation. Then it dawned... Plan B.
    Nothing in life is easy, but like trying to
hoop a prize at a fairground booth, the new plan was pure desperation, nothing
short of impossible, and would cost in effort what the fairground cost in
dollars. Thoughts of my body and mind ending up like an empty wallet made me
shiver. Still, it had to be worth a try.
    Tiptoeing across to the cell door, I slipped
the strap through the buckle of the belt to form a loop. With a firm grip on
the strap, I extended my arm through the bars and ran my hand along the bolt to
the bend, leaving the loop dangling. To say I was petrified of losing the strap
would be an understatement as I teased it through my fingers to add small
degrees of length and kept flicking my wrist. I thought my heart had stopped
when the belt snagged at the flick of the wrist at the umpteenth attempt and I
heard a metallic creak. Sweat poured from my forehead and smarted in my eyes.
The strap was taut and I gave a final tug, releasing the creak from hell that
amplified down the corridor.
    Praying to God wasn’t one of my strong
points, but if it was to work, I made a promise to go to church every Sunday.
The fear was that when I released the tension, the handle would simply fall
back into place. It would have been impossible to grip the bolt without
withdrawing my arm. God must have been listening, because when I hung the strap
over a cross bar, I gripped the bolt, and it moved along and out of the door
bracket with ease.
    When things go according to plan, something
in the back of your mind tells you to give yourself a pinch so as not to get
too complacent. There were a number of options. One was to bolt the door behind
me and hide in Miguel’s cell. The idea was that they would return, see the cell
door locked, and believe I had escaped; I would wait for them to retire and
then sneak off into the night. The problem with that was that A, they might find
me in Miguel’s cell, or B, they would bolt his cell with me in it, or C, they
would secure the outside door.
    There was nothing else to debate. Slipping
through the cell door, I bolted it and headed the ten paces to the exit. After
moment’s hesitation I grasped the door handle and listened. Opening the door an
inch at first, I peered out and saw the farmhouse lit up like a Las Vegas
casino. The stairway down to the yard was in full view. Aware that everything
around there creaked, making a quick rush for freedom didn’t seem to be the way
to go, so, inching the door open enough for me to slip through I dropped to a
crouch on the gantry and slowly closed the door.
    Hope that the dog had jumped into one of
their vehicles clung to me as I scrambled down the stairway and hid behind a
stack of barrels. Why I hadn’t asked Miguel what lay in the opposite direction
was beyond contemplation. Then it hit me, the water bottle... I’d forgotten the
water bottle. If all that lay ahead was mile after mile of desert, it would
have been a gigantic mistake, unless I doubled back to pick up the creek and
followed its flow. There