The most interesting man I ever met in my life used to work as a
tunnelling contractor. I first met him when I was
assigned as his parole officer. After he was released 23 years
into a 45 year prison sentence, I quickly recognized him as one
of the good ones. To me, there are two types of
parolees, those who are going to give me problems and those who
aren't. They come in all shapes, sizes
and characters, but you can always categorize them into one
of those two groups and you can tell which one they will be from
the moment you lay eyes on them. I figured Mike would be the
troublesome kind, not so much because of what he had done, but
because of whom he had done it to.
Back in the late 80s, Mike worked as a tunneling engineer
for a major construction company in the Southwest.
He worked on tourist attractions, mining sites, waste
management sites, and even an R&D facility for a
pharmaceutical company. He made great money, but then
one day Mike's boss told him that all the work was drying up
and his services would no longer be required.
This left Mike in a difficult situation because he had a
mortgage, credit card, and car payments to keep up with, and a
seven month long crash in the regional construction business
meant that he couldn't get a call back from any other
company, let alone a sit down with ACFO or a workable
contract. As the prospects of defaulting
and foreclosure started to loom large, Mike got a call from a
guy asking if he was free to do some work.
Mike said it was like a bolt from the blue.
He was ready to dig a tunnel to China if it paid enough to keep
the repo men away. However, the more he talked to
the representative of his potential new employer, the more
he realized it wasn't going to be like any other job.
Mike offered to send over his license number, insurance, and
bonding information, something 95% of employers would ask for
before even discussing a project with a potential contractor.
But the guy on the phone didn't seem interested in a way that
would have been creepy if it weren't for the friendly manner
of offering work. The caller told Mike that they
were familiar with his work, had done their due diligence, and
we're ready to offer him the job once he'd signed a
confidentiality agreement. In all the years Mike had been
digging and blasting tunnels, no one had ever asked him to sign
anything resembling a confidentiality or non
disclosure agreement. So right away he figured this
particular job was going to be different.
But when he heard what the rate of pay was going to be, he
almost choked on thin air. The most he had ever been paid
for a single day's work was about $800, which as any
contractor will tell you, is a solid amount, especially during
those first five to 10 years of trading.
But the job Mike was being offered by the guy who didn't
seem to care if he was legit or not was $2000 cash in hand at
the end of every single day. Mike said it was like a kiss on
the cheek on one side and a slap in the face on the other $2000 a
day was good money, but in cash every day it was way too good to
be true. But at the same time, Mike
wasn't in the position to turn his nose up at that kind of
money. So instead of flat out refusing,
he thought he'd play along, see what the job entailed, and then
make a definite decision at a later date.
A few days later, the guy called him back and told him to drive
out to the parking lot of some diner near Columbus, NM, but he
was to get there at 10:00 PM. Mike showed up when he was
supposed to, thinking that the job was going to be at the
diner, but instead he found a whole crew of guys standing
around in the cold. When he got out of his car and
identified himself, someone with an authoritative air about them
told him to wait with the others.
Sometime later, a long Greyhound style bus showed up and Mike
correctly assumed that they would be traveling to the work
site. What he didn't expect was for
everyone to be given their very own blindfold.
Obviously this made everyone pretty nervous, but they were
reminded of the pay and that they could walk away at any time
they wanted. The only condition was that they
wear the blindfolds when traveling to and from the work
site. Mike said a couple of guys
actually walked back to their cars and drove away, which in
all fairness, is exactly what he should have done too.
But as we've already covered, he had his plan laid out.
So he got onto the bus, put on his blindfold and then waited to
be told to unmask. Mike said the bus must have
traveled down a highway for a while because the ride was
pretty smooth, but then that all changed when they turned down
what was obviously some kind of side or dirt Rd.
The journey continued for a little while, then the bus came
to a stop, but instead of being allowed to take off their
blindfolds, Mike and the company were let off.
The bus, still blindfolded, then walked all the way into some
large building before being allowed to de mask.
Mike said that the inside looked like a warehouse that had been
gutted of shelving before all the floor panelling had been
ripped up. Someone had already gotten to
work digging a pretty deep hole, they just had to wait for the
engineers to get there before really opening up the tunnel.
Mike said that aside from the real secretive nature of it all,
it was a very professional operation.
Whoever wanted the tunnel dug had all the right materials and
machinery, they just didn't have the expertise.
Before they got to work, someone asked why all the secrecy, and
the group was told that it was a decision from corporate.
They operated in a viciously competitive market, and so
certain security measures had to be taken to ensure their
employer maintained an advantage.
For the most part, this answer seemed to satisfy, but Mike said
that there was still a handful, himself included, that had a
feeling what they were doing wasn't strictly legal.
And he was right. Mike said that he made close to
$30,000 before 1 morning. As the bus rolled back into the
diner parking lot just before dawn, a bunch of federal agents
ambushed the bus, dragged everyone out, and arrested them
on the spot. It turns out their task had been
to dig a tunnel under the border with Mexico, and their employers
had been the Juarez drug cartel. In light of that, Mike and the
rest of the guys he'd worked with were hit with a ton of
different charges. Big ones, too, some of which
implicated them as active members of an international drug
smuggling operation. He got 45 years.
But that's not really the story that I want to tell you today.
You see, as crazy as that story is, it's not the most
frightening 1M ever told me. This one occurred during his
first week in federal prison, when he found himself a very
small and very new fish dropped into some very dark and stormy
waters. Mike said that the first week or
so in prison was the most terrifying of his entire life.
He'd spent a long time in jail, and that all counted toward time
served. But being busted to a federal
lock up was when he finally gave up hope that he might somehow be
able to appeal some of the charges.
The prosecution painted him as some hardened cartel operative
who had put the nation's security at risk in exchange for
personal gain. All the cash he earned was
seized, and he liquidated all of his assets to buy the best
defense attorney he could afford.
But it was no good. And when his cell door closed
shut on that first night in prison, it took everything in
Mike's power not to break down and weep.
You've got to remember, he was only 24 at the time of his
arrest, 25 by the time he got to federal prison.
I'm almost 60 now, and looking back on 25, you're basically
still half a kid. How Mike managed to get himself
involved in such a harebrained scheme to begin with is beyond
me. But even as someone with such a
strong inclination toward law and order, I can't say Mike's
punishment entirely fit the crime.
Mike was scared, but he was an adult.
He knew what he'd have to do to survive, and that was to get
into the good graces of a pre established group to gain safety
in numbers. He did so as quickly as he could
and was told his timing was perfect because anyone who
showered alone became a target for Black Betty.
Betty wasn't the guy's first name.
His last name was Bettany or something like that.
And he wasn't called black because he was African American.
He got that part of his nickname because he scared the living
crap out of people. He was just shy of seven feet
tall, I heard, but a lean 200 lbs and change.
He was mean. He could fight.
But the worst thing was that every so often Black Betty got a
taste for his fellow convicts. If you were in with a bunch of
guys, you could shower together. And although Black Betty
sometimes followed and just stood there watching, he didn't
make a move on anyone. But then, if you weren't with
anyone and you were one of the stragglers who showered alone,
Black Betty would follow them in and take them as he said.
Mike said that he didn't shower for days, not until he and his
new buddies decided to head down to the showers together.
When the time came, Mike said that he was hugely looking
forward to it, as he had a bad case of stink ass and underarms
that smelled like hot death. But when it came to heading to
the shower block, Mike was told that he was going alone.
At first he thought it was some kind of joke, but it wasn't.
His new buddies, who all of a sudden weren't acting very much
like his buddies anymore, were deadly serious.
He was going to go 1st, and he was going to go alone.
And if he had anything else in mind, he could expect not to
survive the night. Mike said he was stunned.
It felt like a nightmare that he was going to wake up from at any
moment. Only he didn't wake up because
it wasn't a nightmare, it was actually happening and he was
screwed. He said he needed to take a
shower, not wanted to, needed to.
So we waited until a few other new fish headed down, looking
scared and alone, and hoped that he would get lost in the crowd.
And when I say crowd, I mean maybe two or three other
convicts. Aware of the threat Black Betty
posed, everyone tried to wash up as quickly as they could, but it
wasn't fast enough. Betty had seen them walking off
to the showers and followed, soap and towel in hand.
As soon as he appeared, everyone started rushing off, but Black
Betty didn't pay them any mind. Instead he had his eyes fixed on
old Mikey Boy, and when he tried to slip past like the rest of
the new fish, Black Betty blocked his way.
Betty backed him all the way up to the back wall of the shower
block, saying all this stuff that was making Mike's skin
crawl, warning him that if he fought back it was only going to
make things worse. Mikey was thinking that there
was no way that he was about to just give up and give in, but at
the same time there was no way that he was going to win a
one-on-one fight with Black Betty.
But Even so, the best option was to give it his best shot and if
Betty killed him in the process, well there were worse fates than
death. Mike's back was right up against
the wall and he was about to tell his would be violator that
he would die before he turned around when he saw this flash of
movement over Betty's shoulder. Suddenly someone hooked a towel
around Betty's neck and then jerked it back, sending him
slamming backwards into the tiled floor of the shower block.
The impact cracked Betty's head open and while his eyes were
still rolling in their sockets, the guys that had ordered Mike
to shower alone appeared and stuck Black Betty so full of
holes that he looked like a blood sponge by the time they
were done. Before they departed, Betty's
killers told Mike that, and I quote you didn't see anything,
which is exactly what he told the warden when he was dragged
into his office later on that day.
He was so traumatized by what he'd seen that the warden and
his top guys had no trouble believing the story.
They knew it wasn't Mike who had stabbed Betty over 100 times.
They just didn't know who did. When Mike wandered back onto the
wing, the first people who wanted to talk to him were his
buddies. They showered him in smokes,
contraband, and all kinds of commissary.
Mike said that they even had a plastic cup full of prison wine
waiting for him to glug down out of sight of the guards.
Long story short, they used him as bait.
Betty wouldn't go for just anyone.
Mike was his type and it was either risk him or keep everyone
at risk. Because Betty wasn't just a
habitual predator, he was an opportunistic one too.
While Betty was around, no one was safe.
But with Betty gone, Mike amounted to a Cellblock hero.
It was his arrival that had given them a golden opportunity
to take Betty down, as they knew that Mike was the kind of new
fish that Betty would have his eye on.
The thing was, Mike's buddies knew that if they let him in on
the plan, there was a chance that he'd be too scared to go
through with it, and so a little coercion seemed in order.
Mike stayed with the group of guys for a long time before
later being transferred to a medium security prison called
Three Rivers, where he served out the rest of his sentence.
Luckily, there was no one like Black Betty around to terrorize
the inmates. To me, the idea of being used as
bait to lure out a human animal is one of the most frightening
concepts I can possibly think of.
But while I've heard that ignorance is bliss, I think not
knowing you're the bait might be even more terrifying.
What's worse, Betty's killers floated the idea of only
beginning their ambush once he was, shall we say, occupied with
Mike. That way, they could ensure that
he'd be suitably distracted. But it also meant condemning
Mike to a truly nightmarish fate.
Thankfully for him, they decided that they couldn't live with
that. Not by unanimous decision,
anyways, but they came to that decision all the same.
Last time I spoke with him, Mikey was driving for Uber up in
Dallas. He said he had a girlfriend and
that she had a kid, and that he felt more and more like a father
by the day. He's come a long way since
digging tunnels in Mexico, and he's come a long way since being
used as bait for a monster. There's so much strangeness and
so much can go wrong for a person out in the desert.
It's no wonder places like this are considered some of the most
dangerous in the world. There's no cover from the
elements, no water, and everything in the dirt seems
intent on hurting or even killing you.
This is a countdown to my most messed up desert experience.
Buckle up to start off lightly. Once on a remote dirt Rd. in
Joshua Tree, I saw a decomposing rattlesnake.
I pulled over to inspect it. It was three to four feet long
and had been dead for perhaps a week, still mostly intact.
The snake had been run over and I found it with its neck turned
sharply, biting its body. I tell you this story to put the
desert into perspective for those who haven't really
experienced it. This rattlesnake preferred to
break its own neck and commit suicide with a fatal bite rather
than suffer under the sun. It's absolutely brutal to see.
Next, I was in Butt Valley for a few months after the Death
Valley Germans disappeared and explored some of the places they
had been to. For those who don't know, the
Death Valley Germans were a family from Germany, a husband,
wife, and two children. They were on a vacation trip
through California when they decided to tour Death Valley,
not fully understanding the dangers.
After the father got them lost, he got their van stuck and the
family was forced to walk. This all took place in 1996.
They weren't found until 2009, by then reduced to nothing but
bones bleached by the sun. These folks were simply
unprepared for the harsh realities of the desert.
Stories like these need to be talked about and understood to
prevent them from happening again.
Too many day trippers head out into seriously dangerous
territory only to find themselves stuck, lost, or both.
Rescue services often don't even know where to begin searching
for them without proper precautions, and attempts at
retrieval are almost always too late.
It was a shame because there were two well equipped cabins
they passed less than an hour's walk away, but they could have
thrived for a month if necessary.
In the opposite direction, the wash is soft and sandy, and
walking it was like walking down an escalator on the few steep
parts it intersects with the road.
Eventually, the lights of the distant town of Schoon are
visible along that Canyon as well.
Instead, they made this grueling hike over an extremely difficult
mountain range, expecting to run into guards that would be
patrolling the remote military base they saw on the map, which
in fact is actually a seldom used bombing range, protected by
its remoteness and inaccessibility.
It's really remote out there, and occasionally spooky at night
if you're all alone. When I went camping in that
area, I could see fires burning off in the distance.
Some looked like well placed campsites, but others were smack
dab in the middle of nowhere, almost where one would expect a
wildfire to be. Instead I would see little
figures dancing around the flames, jumping and doing all
manner of weird stuff. It looked almost ritualistic,
barbaric, but I have to admit I was squinting through the dark
for possible miles. Aside from those fire dancers,
the noises were really weird too.
Hollers and chants echoing between the canyons and the rock
bases. Nothing animalistic, but almost
like they were singing. It's hard to explain.
It almost sounded like the wind when I heard it.
Just voices being carried on the wind and since it's just rolling
desert out there, the sound has this creepy way of carrying
itself from 1 area to another. All this just to set the tone
for the creepiest thing to ever happen to me out in the desert
after decades of scurrying around those dunes.
One time I was taking my young teen nephews out to a remote but
well known desert Canyon for a weekend of quadding and
exploring. I went on seasonal trips in the
later months, starting to teeter into the winter.
My nephews at the time were just boys, maybe 8 and 12 years old
respectively. This was one of those trips to
give my sister a break from her kids, but also to do my part as
an uncle to make these boys into men.
A little rugged dirt camping in the desert is a perfect recipe
for such an endeavor. We zipped out of civilization,
quickly disappearing into the California Backcountry.
As we were doing so, a ragged woman was walking down the road,
which was almost a mile from the Canyon mouth to the paved Rd.
not in distress, but apparently grown bored with whatever party
was happening in the hills and going to hitch a ride back to
Barstow. The party favors are never
running low, and casts of this variety weren't too uncommon,
especially for this recreational area.
At the time. We weren't really in the sticks
yet, just barely off the main drag, so campers and day
drinkers would still be plentiful.
There was no room to drive around her, so I slowed down and
stopped a good distance away. She kept walking toward a motor
home at the same pace until she got to the bumper and just
stopped, then stared at me with this ragged tweaker face.
We looked at one another, engine still idling as my nephews
waited in the back for something to happen.
Is she OK? One of them asked.
I don't know, Was the only thing I could reply with.
Should we help her? Absolutely not, I said very
clearly. This wasn't a situation where
you stopped, let alone open the door for someone with a face
like that. Still, I understood where my
nephews were coming from. They were good kids.
This woman did kind of look distressed, like someone you
might reach a hand out to help. After a minute or two, I was
wondering if I was going to have to get out and move her so we
could continue down the road. She had this determined look,
then started marching around to the passenger side.
As soon as she was clear of the front.
I gunned it and drove off before she could even start trying our
doors. It was the most unexpected place
to encounter this stereotypical opportunistic urban junkie.
It was clear as day the second she made that face that she was
going to try to get in the car and do her best to force us to
turn around and drive her back to the city.
This lady had this dried up desperation.
Needing to get high again, we bolted by and as I looked in my
rear view, I watched her throw her arms up in defeat, screaming
all manner of crazy stuff back at us.
But then she did something that I did not expect.
She turned on her heel and started following us, not
quickly, but at the slow walk, the same she had before When we
rolled up on her. She was in it for the long haul.
I just remember swallowing and thinking there's no way she's
going to be able to keep up. But damn, we were in a camper,
not going very fast and created a lot of dust.
If she was persistent she could probably find us.
I just hit the gas and moseyed on toward the campsite.
I knew the area well, much better than some Barstow bound
meth head. We wound back into the desert,
well out of sight of that woman until we hit the spot that we'd
call home for the next couple of days.
It was well out of the way, totally out of view from the
mini dirt road and other camping spots inside that area.
We hadn't seen anybody else on our drive back there, so we knew
we were set in regards to getting some alone time.
Still in the moment, I couldn't shake the image of that crazy
junkie lady turning and following us.
Eventually I just lost myself in the chores of setting up camp,
getting the fire pit ready, gathering wood and when we were
ready, setting up a makeshift area for us to relax, all that
normal stuff. My nephews helped, of course,
ignorant to the fact that that Lady might still be out there
looking for us. The day drifted by, and of
course I forgot about that entire encounter.
In all honesty, we were something like 15 miles away
from where we saw her. Much further than she'd be
willing to walk, I was sure of it.
Probably lost the nerve after a mile or two, turned back around
and headed the other direction. Either way, we were saddled up
for the weekend with no plans of moving.
You'd be hard pressed to find us out in the dark.
We relaxed as the sun drifted away, leaving us with just the
flames for light. The two dogs told spooky
stories. I showed the kids what
constellations we could see through the trees.
We ate, relaxed a little more, and just as I was starting to
get tired, I heard something. The kind of thing you don't want
to hear when you're all alone in the middle of the desert.
Voices. They seemed far off at first,
but soon I could make out the cadence, the words.
It sounded like two or three more people, a girl and at least
one guy. I relaxed, thinking it was just
some other campers out for a late night stroll, or maybe even
coming back from the spring around the bend where a little
swimming could be done if wanted.
I told you it was them. The voice screeched from just
outside view. Me and the boys jumped at the
sound, unsure of who or what was around us.
Before I could even get up, she strolled into the fire light,
pointing an accusatory finger directly at me.
It was her, that tweaker that we had encountered on the road.
I couldn't believe she found us, with company no less.
Hey, can we help you with something?
I asked. Yeah, you piece of crap, you
left me out on the road. She screamed over the fire at
me. So you come back to my camp and
attack me? Get a grip and get the hell out
of here. I explained in a stern voice.
I had to make a show of this with the kids still wide awake.
I gestured to my nephews and went on.
I'm taking the kids out camping. I don't have time to play 20
questions with some lady who's standing in the middle of the
road. Better watch your mouth, boy.
Some guy said as he stepped out of the shadows, skinny, inked up
and missing a good nine or 10 teeth.
He had cheap, shiny jewelry on his wrist and in his ears,
looking like your average St. rapper, a piece of crap out of
Fresno or whatever part of California you're familiar with.
I made it very clear to these people that I wasn't watching
anything. This was my camp, my property,
and my family. I wasn't obligated to help
anyone out or do any favors for strangers in the woods.
The fact that they had tracked me down was grounds enough for
defense, or maybe just a call to the Sheriff's Office.
This didn't have the effect that I thought it would.
Instead of tucking tail and going back into the darkness,
they doubled down, started screaming all kinds of threats
and insults. I ushered both boys into the RV.
We were quickly getting very upset before turning back and
casually talking to the people. What I really was doing was
packing up our loose belongings, all the stuff that mattered, and
tucking it into the storage areas of the RV.
The whole time I was just pacifying, trying to talk, but
more as a distraction. That was until tweaker dude
picked up a rock, then threatened to smash my head in.
At this point I fronted like I had a gun, which I did.
It was just inside the RV. I reached into my back waistline
and that made the guy freeze up for a second, just long enough
for me to literally drive full bore through the door and
inside. The RVI locked up behind me and
ran for the driver's seat. By the time I got there, this
idiot was smashing the outside of the RV with the rock.
I was pissed, but I didn't have any other options other than
flight. I fired up, the engine, shifted,
and then started that slow slog back to the main campgrounds.
When the headlights lit up, I was in total shock.
There were at least six or seven more tweakers all milling around
outside the camp, waiting to see what happened.
It dawned on me then that this was some kind of setup or
something. We were in the middle of a
campsite robbery out in the middle of nowhere.
I gunned it. At this point there was no
chance of me and the boys getting trapped out there with
all of them. God knows what they do to us
after they got us outside. The RV had a pistol with eight
rounds in it unchambered, as well as a 20 gauge single barrel
bird gun, also unloaded. The time it would take me to get
into gear and load them up, they'd have all the windows
smashed out and would be on top of me already.
Driving was the best and only option for us at the moment.
I looked in the rear view as I swerved out of the campsite and
finally saw some good news. Not a single person tried to
follow us. We rambled onward as the meager
pile of belongings I'd left behind was enough to distract
them all. There was a hammock, a couple of
folding chairs, maybe even a small empty cooler.
Stuff I could easily replace. Besides, there wasn't a cost for
protecting my nephews. They were obviously the top
priority. We rambled out of the Canyon as
quickly as that RV would allow us.
The boys finally calmed down once we left that chaos behind.
Everything seemed to wind down. Stars twinkled overhead.
I tried to enjoy our escape as much as we could.
Up ahead, though, as we closed in on that paved roadway, I saw
some headlights cutting through the brush.
I figured I'd flash them with my brights and speak to them
through the window if I could warn them about those thieves
out in the campground tonight. To my utter surprise, it was a
pair of sheriffs with the game warden in tow.
They'd all received reports of a group of lunatics roaming the
area. I confirmed everything that they
had heard, told them exactly where they could find them, then
proceeded on our way back home. There was no way I was going to
make those kids sleep out there with the police combing the
forest. It was better to go back to the
lake or something, somewhere more populated and civilized.
That's exactly what we did. And that, folks, is my crazy
desert tweaker story. I hope you enjoyed it.
I'll be completely honest with you, I had next to no idea what
I wanted to do with my life when I first applied to university.
I'd always been interested in crime and police dramas, so I
had an inkling that I'd end up doing something related to
criminal justice. I just wasn't exactly sure what
it would be. My mom had dreams of me being a
barrister or an attorney here in the UK, but I didn't think I had
the smarts for that kind of thing.
I also didn't fancy anything too morbid, which put me at odds
with almost everyone else on my course.
Most of them wanted to get into forensics or CID, which is where
you go to be a homicide detective or join the drug
squad. On the other hand, I felt like I
wanted to do something more analytical, something impactful,
but more behind the scenes. I know that makes me seem like
some fussy little bugger, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking
that. Yet if I can make one little
correction, I think I was more like an indecisive little
bugger. But a few years of study helped
me see to that. The more I studied, the more I
approached a kind of epiphany. Statistically it's only a small
portion of the population that commits crime, usually less than
10% of the country's overall population.
Then with certain crimes that statistic is even smaller.
For example, with shoplifting, it's only something like 0.2% of
the British population. That accounts for all incidents
of shoplifting. That's only about 100,000 people
out of a population of almost 70 million.
My point is, it seemed like the best way to reduce certain types
of crime was to focus on preventing re offending, as
opposed to imposing harsher sentences for said reoffending
that would inevitably cause a person to sink deeper into
criminality. Once I'd made my mind up about
that, my ever elusive career path lit up in front of me and I
took my first step on the road to becoming a probation officer.
I volunteered with the Prison Advice and Care Trust when I was
in my third year, an organization that provides
support services to newly released prisoners.
I honestly just did it to get a taste of what it'd be like
working with former prisoners, as I still had a few lingering
doubts over whether or not I'd be any good at it.
But when it came to applying for the Trainee Probation Officer
program following my graduation from uni, the Ministry of
Justice practically bit my arm off.
Owing to that prior experience, I spent six months attending a
nearby Learning Development Unit where I was taught the tricks of
the trade. Then after a series of rigorous
computer based tests, I was cleared as an officer of Her
Majesty's Prison and Probation Service.
It was a bit surreal at first, especially when I told all my
mates from back home about it. They couldn't picture me dealing
with hardened criminals on a daily basis and honestly neither
could I. I did a load of conflict
management and de escalation training at the LDU and it was
all great training that I learned a lot from.
But I also heard a couple of horror stories that served as
examples of how not to tackle a tense situation with a client,
and that's the word we were taught to use.
Client. Some think it's a much better
term than probationer or ex prisoner in that it's a much
softer, much more hopeful terminology, but it never really
sat right with me. Client makes it sound like we're
doing them a favor, when really I think going straight is them
doing us the biggest favor possible anyway.
My first few cases were massively challenging, but after
that I started to get the hang of things.
I dealt with a lot of lads who had been caught in one little
street fight on a drunken Saturday night.
They weren't hardened criminals and the last thing they ever
wanted was to go back to prison, so getting them into work and
sticking to routines we'd laid out was easy.
Then there were people who had been in prison for dealing
drugs. Those who had been in for
lengthier stretches sometimes seemed like they genuinely
wanted to get out of the game. But the ones who'd been in for
three or four months for selling cannabis, you knew that they
were going straight back to dealing no matter what you said
or did for them. I had this one lad who said that
he'd signed up to do bicycle deliveries for Uber Eats.
I personally saw him whizzing all over town on two different
occasions. I'd literally never seen anyone
so keen on getting back into work.
But then when I checked with Uber Eats and gave them the
bogus Courier ID that he'd given me, I discovered that he must
have done a grand total of two or three deliveries before he
started using his big green delivery bag as essentially a
cover to go back to dealing. For the most part, that was
about as exciting as it got. Clients trying to give you the
run around, having to chase down where they are and what they're
doing. But I quickly came to prefer
that more mundane sort of work, as the alternative was much,
much worse. Every so often I was given one
of two cases, a sex offender or a murderer.
There were exceptions here and there, but when you're around
someone who's taken a life, it's like there's a heaviness in the
room. I'm not talking about people
convicted of things like manslaughter or death by
dangerous driving, who are more often than not haunted by the
people whose lives they've taken until the day they die.
I'm talking about murderers, people convicted of killing in
cold blood or for money or just for the sick, bloody thrill of
it. One or two of them I'd have
never guessed were killers without having seen their case
file. And I think they were the
creepiest of the lot, because you could see why someone might
trust them enough to put themselves in a vulnerable
position. But the single creepiest client
I've had so far was a sex offender.
Now, don't get me wrong, they're all frightening people in their
own way, but they're especially frightening if the offense has
anything to do with children. Obviously I wasn't dealing with
child killers or dangerous predators against children
because they tend to get whole life tariffs and therefore no
probation. But some of the clients that I
did deal with who had been to prison for these offences were
just as sick, just as predatory, and just as creepy as the ones
who'd killed. They just never crossed that
line and took a life. I was about 2 1/2 years into my
career when my boss dropped by my desk with a caseload for me
to work through. A caseload contains anywhere
from a handful of cases to two dozen of them, sometimes even
more. You can generally count on a
bigger caseload to include a lot of low priority clients, IEE
those released after serving sentences for relatively minor
offenses. You could get a drink driving
case, maybe someone who perjured themselves in court, which
happens a lot more than you'd think, and all you had to do was
stop in with them every so often, have a chat and a cup of
tea and they'd always be sticking to their post release
goals. It'd be a time consuming
caseload, but generally not a stressful 1.
The stressful ones came when a caseload was only three or four
files deep and if it was that small you knew what to expect.
Murderer or sex offender. And this caseload was no
different. There were four cases, a
murderer, a second murderer, 1/3 murderer, and a sex offender.
As usual, my heart sank when I saw the words on that 4th file.
Like I said, dealing with these types of people was always an
unpleasant experience. But when the offense is related
to the abuse or exploitation of children, it's doubly skin
crawling. With some clients, it pays to be
emotional because when they see that you really give a toss
about them, that they're not just a number or a statistic to
you, they start to give a toss too.
But every time I walked into a room with a convicted sex
offender, I had to leave my emotions at the door.
It's not exactly an unconscious act, either.
In the past, I've had to actively pretend that the person
in front of me was no different than any other client.
I made no reference to what they'd done, focused entirely on
their future, and kept whatever they've been convicted of
completely out of my head. Because if even just for one
small second you remind yourself that they preyed on a child, you
just can't do your job anymore. And it's the process of
switching off my emotions that I found myself repeating one
morning on my first visit to the offender that I'd been assigned
to. Now I'd get the sack if I use
this bloke's real name. So I'll just call him Jimmy.
Because as repulsive as it is, this bloke had a very weirdly
similar vibe to Jimmy Savile. He didn't have the hair or the
chains or the tracksuit, nothing like that.
But he had this let's be friends kind of vibe to him, along with
this air of arrogance, like he'd forgotten where he just come
from and why. He was in his 50s and looked
relatively harmless at first glance, but once you knew what
he'd been convicted of, you realized just how dangerous he
really was. Back when he was in his 20s,
Jimmy had been working for a painting and decorating firm and
drove a small three wheel van from job to job.
One day he sees an 11 year old girl playing in the street with
her mates after school. He calls her over and starts
offering to teach her to smoke. Wild thing to do in this day and
age, but it was the 70s back then so a very different time.
Anyway, the girl says yes to the offer of being taught how to
smoke because again, different time, but is scared that her mom
will see. Jimmy then gets her in his van
and drives her off somewhere secluded.
But then he doesn't try to teach the girl to smoke.
Instead, he tried to teach her to do something else.
When the girl refused, Jimmy tied her up, beat the girl black
and blue, and then kicked her out of his van and drove off.
The girl walked two miles back into town, binding still around
her wrists, and went straight to the nearest police station to
make a report. Jimmy was convicted on the
testimony of the girl, her friends and a passer by who'd
said that they'd heard a girl crying in the parked van but
didn't think anything of it until the police made an appeal
for information. That, along with a trove of
indecent images found in his flat, landed Jimmy with almost
50 years in prison for each separate offense.
And he got out after 35. My first meeting with him was
the same as any other, a basic introduction to myself and the
probation scheme, then a rough outline of what would be
expected of him over the months to come.
Obviously clients are sometimes restricted from going near
certain places, and in Jimmy's case he was barred from anywhere
where there'd be kids. But then the probation service
very much takes a busy hands or happy hands approach to
rehabilitation. And the way you keep a person
from being tempted to go to set places is to make sure that
they've got hobbies. I know it sounds daft, give this
creep a jigsaw puzzle and he'll stop wanting to touch kids.
But they've done studies on it, and if you keep these people
occupied, if you can tire them out entirely mentally or
physically. The risk of long and short term
reoffending drops by 50%, which in our game is a significant
number. So on the first visit, when it
came to briefly covering the whole hobbies thing, Jimmy
mentioned that he'd taken up sketching in prison and that
he'd continued it post release as it kept his head straight as
he put it. I then asked if he had any
drawings to show me and he said that he did.
A lot of lads will make out that they've got a hobby or that
they've taken up running or any number of things, but when you
call them on it, they've yet to pick up the trainers or yet to
sign up for XYZ because they've been oh so busy post release.
But then Jimmy got up, walked over to the little coffee table
in his living room and then brought back a sketchbook of
things that he'd been working on.
He opened up the book and right away I was struck by how bloody
good he was. There were all these horses,
amazingly drawn ones too, in all kinds of different poses.
I asked Jim if he liked horses, and he told me not really,
they're just the hardest thing to draw.
Draw a horse and you can draw a human, no problem.
He mentioned a few other things about form and curvature, but I
wasn't really listening at that point.
I was completely dumbfounded by how good his drawings were, but
then considering that he'd been practicing for the better part
of two decades, he was exactly as good as he should have been.
Still though, I was awfully impressed, and if he already had
a hobby boxed off, then it made my job a lot easier if I could
just use the drawing as proof of his extracurricular activities.
It also gave me huge Peace of Mind too, because offenders have
a recidivism rate that floats around 15% depending on which
studies you read, and that's always in the back of your mind
when you're dealing with them. It could be your actions or your
observations that send them back to prison before they get a
chance to re offend. But then obviously that's a hell
of a lot of pressure having a serial shoplifter go back on the
Rob and the Gordon's Gin company loses a tenor.
Have a kid toucher re offend and the victim deals with it for
years, possibly even for the rest of their lives.
I kept a close eye on Jimmy and although I won't say where I
managed to get him back into work.
Everything appeared to be going OK, and for a while I was half
convinced that he really did want to go back on the straight
and narrow. But at the same time there were
other things that made me suspect that he hadn't quite
turned over a new leaf. He seemed to be trying a bit too
hard to convince me that he was ready to live a normal life.
And then whenever something in our discussions didn't go his
way, it was like you saw his fake happy go lucky persona drop
for a second and you saw the real Jimmy underneath.
It was that duplicity that made me want to keep a closer eye on
him. And in situations like that, the
devil can quite literally be in the details.
For example, the halfway house we placed Jimmy in was in this
big old Georgian looking building and each of the rooms
had these floor to ceiling windows.
This meant that on the way in to have a chat with him, I could
actually see into the living room of Jimmy's little flat
there before I got to the front door.
And then one day, as I'm walking in to see him, I spy him through
the window doing another one of his drawings.
But then, instead of a book with a Gray cover like the one he'd
showed me during the first visit, I could quite clearly see
that the book that he was drawing in then had a sort of
pinky purple cover. I think if it had been any other
color, I might have missed it, but the distinctive hue just so
happened to catch my eye. Once I was inside, it was down
to a motionless business as usual.
But then, just as I was leaving, I asked him.
Moved on to a new sketchbook, Huh.
But instead of showing me his latest work, he gave me this
confused look and then told me no, I'm still working on the
same one. I told him I was quite certain
that he'd been drawing in a pink sketchbook as I caught a glimpse
of him on the way in. But with the same bewildered
expression, Jimmy claimed to have no idea what I was talking
about. I knew that he'd been drawing in
a different colored sketchbook. There was no way that I was
mistaken, so I reminded him that hiding things or engaging in any
kind of duplicity whatsoever was a very bad look for someone in
his position. He put on that let's be friends
attitude again and then invited me to search the flat for any
sign of this non existent pink sketchbook.
I didn't call his bluff, not right away.
If he was confident enough to invite me to search his flat,
then he probably had a very effective hiding place, and
although I had next to no idea what was in it, I knew at that
point I had to find it. As I said earlier, if a client
displays any kind of duplicitous behavior, it can speak volumes.
In the case of that Uber Eats cannabis dealer, the
consequences can be minimal, but in the case of someone like
Jimmy, incompetence on the part of a probation officer can spell
disaster for an innocent member of the public.
The only problem was I couldn't exactly go throwing around
allegations Willy nilly. Say I went to my bosses and told
them I suspect a client is doing something rather sneaky so I
need officers to turn his flat upside down so I can find a
notebook I'm not even certain is there anymore.
And then the police don't find the book.
I could lose my job. I'm not saying I want to live in
a world where past and present prisoners don't have any rights
and are denied a chance to turn their lives around.
I respect the fact that I needed evidence of my suspicions, but
sometimes bridging the gap between suspicion and accusation
can be very frustrating indeed, especially when it comes to
someone as downright cunning as Jimmy.
That took about six or seven weeks before I was able to catch
him drawing in that little pink book again.
I was in my car, binoculars in hand.
Which by the way was about the only time I ever felt like the
trench coat wearing noir detective that I'd always
dreamed about and read about when I was a kid.
Then once I was satisfied that he was using his little pink
book, I gave him a quick call on my mobile as I continued to
watch him. He actually jumped when he heard
his phone going and when he picked up I saw him do that
reverse werewolf transform of going from startled and Moody
faced to greeting me like a long lost friend.
I told him that I'd been a right division and had messed up my
diary and had double booked for our meeting the next day.
I followed up by asking him in the nicest way possible if I
could stop by for a chat maybe in the next 5 minutes or so
because I was just around the corner.
Jimmy said sure, no problem and then we ended the call.
I then watched as Jimmy closed the pink book, picked it up and
then walked off to a corner of his flat before bending down.
Next time I saw him, there was no pink book in his hand
wherever he was hiding it. It was in that particular corner
that he just scurried off to before he appeared empty handed.
It made sense that he couldn't hide the book in his bathroom,
as the moisture would probably ruin the pages or something, so
it had to be in his living room somewhere, and it had to be down
pretty low. The next time Jimmy was at work,
I enlisted the help of two community support officers in a
search of his flat, with me instructing the pair of them to
pay particular focus to that one corner of the room.
About 10 minutes later, after pulling up a loose section of
carpet, one of the PCs OS called me over to a gap in the
floorboards and asked me, is this what you're looking for?
It was the little pink book. In a weird way, I was actually
quite excited to see what was in it.
A lot of criminals try to re establish connections when they
leave prison, so there was a slim chance that there might be
details of other active predators in that book, which
would get me a massive pat on the back if I turned it into my
bosses. But if I'm being honest, nothing
could have prepared me for what was in that book.
About 1/3 of it was filled with incredibly detailed drawings of
school age children, all bound and gagged by various means and
in various positions. Much like the horses Jimmy drew,
the pictures of the children were shockingly detailed and
lifelike. Their little faces were either
twisted up with pain or fear, or they stared back at their
creator with wide, frightened eyes.
But unlike the horse drawings, which were so unexpectedly
impressive that they verged on awe inspiring, these drawings
made me feel sick to my stomach. It was like I was holding a
piece of radioactive material or something.
Now, I know that might sound a bit melodramatic to some people,
but that's what it felt like to me.
It was like I could feel all this hideousness just radiating
off the book, like I wanted to seal it up and burn it and bury
its ashes under 20 feet of earth.
Whoever drew those pictures was a very, very sick person, and
the idea that I've been sharing cups of tea with him made me
want to take a shower and hot bleach.
I only got a good look at about two or three of the drawings
before I slammed the book shut. My heart was pounding as I asked
the support officers to hang around for a bit.
Then I gave my boss a call to let him know what we'd found.
Seeing those drawings was probably one of the darkest
moments of my entire life. But then knowing that I'd
secured my evidence was one of the highlights, and it came with
an adrenaline rush to match. Within the hour, regular
uniformed officers were dispatched to Jimmy's place of
work, and he was placed under arrest.
Then he was promptly transported back to prison to await the
decision of the Parole Board. Once it was determined that he'd
breached his license, the board announced that he'd remain in
prison for the remaining 15 years of his sentence.
And that, thank Christ, was the end of my working relationship
with Jimmy. Back at 45 Division, which is
what we called HQ. It was Pat's on the back all
around for yours truly. I was the office favorite for
about two weeks after because it felt like we'd achieved
something really significant. Everyone, the Parole Board
included, felt that Jimmy was almost certainly on the path to
re offending, and if he'd kept us all fooled and been allowed
back into society, he could have done untold damage to any number
of children, including those of the people we worked with.
I think that's why the result was received so well.
I defused a ticking time bomb that could have blown up in just
about anyone's face in a way that goes right back to why I
joined the probation service in the 1st place.
I'd found what I was good at, and what I was good at made a
difference. I've spent countless days
hunting in the southern Texas desert.
It's where my family is from, and I grew up dusting critters
from 100 yards under the careful supervision of my pop and
granddad. Over time, I became a solid
hunter all on my own. I bagged just about everything
you can along the border, and I've done every kind of trip
that you can with family, friends, or even by myself.
It's a fun, if not therapeutic, investment of my time and one
that I've always really enjoyed. One trip haunts me though, and
it was about 10 years ago. My buddies Tim Carey and I
decided to solo hunt for wild pigs, or boars, as some folks
call them. We've been coming to this region
for years and knew the terrain like the back of our hand.
We were probably the best hunters out there among our
immediate group of friends, which was one of the reasons we
all wanted to go together, to keep the dead weight off and
just bring back trophies. Every afternoon we would compare
the height and weight of our kills.
The desert stretched out before us like an empty grave, sandy
dunes rolling out in the distance.
We set up camp in a secluded spot, far from any prying eyes.
This wasn't an area known for anything nefarious, but being in
the middle of nowhere, especially near the border, you
just never know what could happen.
So we learned early on that it's better to be safe than sorry.
Besides, getting out away from the rest of the world was where
we'd find good hunting. We all settled in for the night,
passing a tinfoil wrap full of tamales around the fire, we
heard a strange sound like nothing any of us had ever heard
before. It started as a low hum, then
rose to a piercing wine before dropping back down to a gentle
whisper. We all exchanged uneasy glances,
but said nothing, yet it was as if we were all thinking the same
thing. What the hell is that?
It has to be just a coyote or something.
Tim said, finally breaking the silence.
Yeah, or maybe it's a plane flying overhead.
Carrie added, though we all knew it wasn't either of those
things. That sound continued for a
while, then abruptly stopped. We sat there listening to the
silence, our ears straining to pick up any further noises, but
there was nothing except the crackling of the fire and the
occasional hoot of an owl in the distance.
All right, well, I'm turning in. Tim said, standing up and
dusting off his pants. Got an early start tomorrow,
boys. Yeah, I guess I will too.
Carrie said, following suit. I nodded, though I wasn't tired
at all. I stayed up for a while just
listening to the darkness, still wondering what that sound had
been. But it didn't come back, and
eventually I drifted off to sleep with my dreams filled with
strange, unsettling images. Like I said earlier, I've spent
decades out in this region, hunting, camping, and generally
just roughing it. I've never heard anything even
close to that, and those dreams I had were even more unsettling.
They were all more than likely unrelated, but at the time I
thought something was trying to speak to me through my thoughts.
It kind of freaked me out. As I lay there, I couldn't shake
the feeling that we were being watched, that something was out
there waiting for us to venture into its domain.
I quickly pushed that thought aside, telling myself I was just
spooked. After all, we've been hunting in
these woods for years and never seen anything out of the
ordinary. As I drifted off to sleep, I
wondered, what if this time it's different?
It has to happen sometime, right?
We woke up in the morning and everything was fine.
We got up just before the sun, when everything is suspended in
that weird hazy blue. Camp was intact.
There weren't any weird sounds, no signs of critters or humans
alike. We brewed a pot of coffee and
killed it immediately, then got our gear together for the hunt
that day. Now I knew how Tim and Carrie
haunted. They follow ridgebacks at a
slope and try to flush little herds of pigs out into the open.
They'd walk with their backs to the sun, which was smart, but I
wanted to be on my own, not just taking potshots at pigs on the
run. No, if I was going to out hunt
either of these guys, I was going to have to take a
different approach entirely. We all wished each other good
luck, then wandered off in our separate directions.
Tim went north and Carrie went WI started hoofing at Southeast,
the exact opposite direction. I wore full desert camo, but
just the light stuff, nothing heavy or paramilitary, just
enough to let me disappear from vision if I stumbled upon a
herd. I was going light for this first
hunt as it was mostly just for scouting anyway.
All I had on me was a seven shot 357 magnum on my hip, binoculars
and a camelback water system. Just the basics.
I moved along ahead of a plateau until it dipped away into this
long winding gully. Even in the early morning light
I could see it snaking off for at least a mile.
This was the kind of terrain feature you might find some pigs
in, especially with it being so long.
There might be water or little pockets of cactus fruit to eat.
I dropped down below the gully from the top lip so I could
easily look down inside of it rather than up and out.
It allowed me a vantage point into the pockets of the ravine,
but it also let me see the flat land on the other side.
I kept my binoculars handy as I trailed along those Badlands
under the bright sky. 30 minutes later I wasn't seeing much sign
of pigs. Then I heard some gunfire off in
the distance. In the moment it was kind of
hard to tell which direction it had come from, but I thought
maybe back West, The way my buddy had gone, it was possible
he came upon something and decided to drop it.
Part of me thought it sounded dead S though, and the border
was only a few miles away. It was kind of an uneasy feeling
for a moment. As I walked out in the open.
That gully wandered on. I crossed it and started walking
to the other side before eventually finding a little game
trail through the brush. I abandoned the gully and
followed the trail. Soon there were some scat and
scratch marks, all kinds of evidence of pig.
I unlatched my holster and scanned the area, following the
heaviest traffic trail. About half a mile later, I came
up over a Ridge and heard some rustling.
Sure enough, a monster boar came around this huge boulder and
gave me its broadside. I went still and let it wander
before drawing and dropping that sucker right there in the dirt.
It was almost a wide shot, but the thing was so big it was
impossible to miss a kill shot on, especially that close.
It wheezed a little, but went down in a second and died
without much suffering. I was stoked.
This thing must have weighed at least 300 lbs.
I wasn't sure how I'd get it back to camp, but I'd killed it
nonetheless. I was fairly certain I had those
boys beat too, so I holstered my gun and got to gutting the
thing. The quicker I got it broken
down, the quicker I could haul it back to camp.
About halfway through that field dressing, I heard something off
in the distance. My eyes peeled wide when I
recognized the sound from the night before.
The thing me and the fellas heard right before we went to
bed. Some weird droning, whining and
whispering. Yelling too far away to
understand it. Still so bizarre.
After only a few minutes, I understood what it was.
It got closer and closer until I could hear the whine of an
engine, the chug of cylinders. Those whispers turned into
lyrics from some rock song. It was a side by side, a razor.
It was coming up on me fast for some reason.
I took a few steps back and tucked myself behind a little
brush. I wasn't totally hidden, but I
was positioned in a way that I could disappear in a hurry if
need be. The place we were at didn't
really have a lot of off roaders.
A desolate but ugly area, very far from anything else.
Now I had a feeling that whoever would be trouncing around here
was probably a peacekeeper or a criminal.
Just a minute later that razor came blasting into the little
clearing area where I shot the boar.
It skidded to a stop and I could see two guys in goggles looking
around in every direction. They spotted the pig, looked up,
and quickly spotted me. I waved.
They undid their seatbelts and hopped out, at which point I
noticed that they were both carrying AR Fifteens of some
kind, scoped up and everything. They yelled something over to
me, but over the sound of that side by side, I couldn't hear
anything but my own heartbeat. The driver leaned over and
killed the ignition so we could talk.
I figured they were hunters too. Looking to get directions to the
herd that I just hit something to that effect.
Hey there, you got a driver's license?
The passenger asked me. The last thing I ever expected
to be asked in the moment. What you got?
Idi furrowed my brow. Were they Border Patrol?
I mean, the short answer was definitely no.
My wallet was back at camp, secured in my truck.
The only thing I had was my hunting permit, a faded scrap of
paper in my pocket. Even then, it didn't really
count as ID, as anyone's name could be on it.
No guys with the Border Patrol or something?
I asked. They sort of laughed, and that's
when I sized them up. Dirty, greasy, unkempt, wearing
vests, but only in decoration. They didn't have plates behind
them, just pockets full of cheap plastic magazines.
I looked at the guns and saw they weren't anything special.
Hell, even the razor was a piece of junk.
Nope. These were just two good old
boys who lived in the middle of nowhere and fancied themselves
agents of the law. Or something to that effect.
Now we're a little different from that one explained.
You got anything to tell us who you are?
My first thought was of the 357 on my hip.
Now it was my turn to laugh, but I thought better of it.
I didn't want to make any moves and try to get smart.
I just kind of shrugged and said Nope, I'm a Texas resident, long
time local, just out on a pig hunt.
Then I gestured to that big dead boar that was between us.
Yeah, we heard that. He made a Gimme motion with his
hand as he spoke. Going to need you to hand that
over until we can get your paperwork squared away.
Now I really froze up. I was willing to stand and talk,
but this was the moment that I drew a line in the sand.
Literally. I wasn't going anywhere, and I
wasn't going to hand over any of my property to them either.
This was all legal. My gun was legal, everything I
was doing was well within the law.
These pricks just felt holier than thou and wanted to jam
people up. Likely looking for illegal
immigrants. Silly of them, this area wasn't
really known for that kind of traffic.
Didn't matter to them though, the situation wasn't going away.
I took a breath, then a single step backward into the brush.
They did exactly what I figured they were going to do.
Start to bring their barrels up. They looked startled, almost
excited. This was probably a wet dream
for guys like this. Every couple of desert rat
clowns who saw themselves as freedom fighters resisting some
kind of invisible enemy. Well, now I was the only enemy
out there, and I wasn't about to get juked up by a couple of
racist rednecks trying to be Border Patrol.
I took another step back and got a little brush between us.
I was talking, I don't remember exactly what I was saying
though, probably something to the effect that they were out of
line and didn't carry jurisdiction that anyone
recognized. I remember my hand coming up to
my handle on my pistol, but I didn't draw, just a comfort.
Someone did draw though, 3 sharp reports leveled the area and
sent birds and rabbits scattering in every direction.
I turned to find Carrie standing up on a Ridge that overlooked
us, his own mini AR15 pointed barrel up and smoking.
He then waved a hand down to me to let me know it was all good.
Then I saw Tim, he was much closer, only 50 or 60 feet away
from our little standoff. He was posted up behind a
boulder, looking down the iron side of that old military
surplus rifle that he used on these hunts.
It was a tried and true man killer, more than enough to
punch a few holes inside these dweebs.
Once Tim and I made eye contact, he slipped around from the
boulder and started approaching me, never taking his rifle off
the guys in their razor. What's going on?
He asked. Nothing.
I downed a pig when these fellows rolled up on me, on
their side by side. That racket sound familiar to
you? Oh, yeah.
Tim nodded. Same stuff from last night,
right? Yep, I said.
Now remind me what you boys need again.
I wish I could explain the look on their faces, like a couple of
kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
I mean pale blank faces, tears bubbling up and ready to cry.
They bit off way more than they could chew, and they immediately
knew it. Nothing.
We were just coming to check out that shooting is all.
One of them stammered out. They explained that they live
nearby and had been dealing with all manner of different kinds of
crime, whether from cartel members or just strangers
passing through. We explained that we were
hunters and the only problem we were having with criminals was
them right there in that moment. Ultimately, we just went our
separate ways. We didn't hear that razor or
their loud music for the rest of our trip.
Nobody else bothered us. It turned out that Carrie and
Tim weren't having any luck, so when they heard me take my shot,
they decided to come and see if anything had gone down.
Just as they came over that Ridge, the razor came skating up
near me. That's when they jumped into
action and decided to rescue me. Carrie took up that position on
the high ground while Tim snaked down to me to put a gun in their
face. Thank God they did that because
those fellas rolled up on me ready to shoot, ready to tie me
up and drag me behind their little off road machine.
The scary thing is, it happened. It pays to have good friends.