Elle James - Cowboy Resurrected

Sophia knew that Antonio had contacts on the American side. High-powered, armed contacts that guaranteed safe passage of his people and products for distribution. Since the death of the former cartel boss, Xavier Salazar, Antonio had taken over, amassing a fortune in the illicit drug trade of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana. His power had grown tenfold, his arrogance exponentially, but he reported to a higher boss, a mysterious man not many of the cartel had actually seen. Rumor had it that he was an American of great influence. True or not, every time he visited, cartel members who’d betrayed la Familia were executed.

Sophia’s only hope was to get far enough onto American soil and reach Hank Derringer. Anna said he would help her and protect her from Antonio. She’d said Señor Derringer was an honest, good man who had many connections on both sides of the border.

Her motorcycle hit a rock, jerking the handlebar sharply to her left. Sophia’s arms ached with the constant struggle to keep the vehicle upright. She slowed, dropping farther behind Hector as they climbed yet another steep trail. They’d been traveling for hours, stopping to rest only once.

Her stomach rumbled, the nausea she’d fought hard to hide from Antonio surfacing, telling her she needed to eat or her body would set off a round of dry heaves that would leave her empty and weak.

When she thought she could take it no more, the beating sound of chopper rotors swept into the canyon, the roar bouncing off the vertical walls.

Adrenaline spiked through her, giving her the strength to continue on.

Ahead, Hector climbed a trail leading to the rim of the canyon.

Sophia shouted, wanting him to wait, seek cover and hide from the approaching aircraft. She feared Antonio had discovered her escape and sent his enforcers to find her and bring her back. He had the firepower and access to aircraft that would enable him to extract her from the canyon. Sophia had seen the airplanes and helicopters near the compound’s landing field. Money truly could buy anything.

Hector cleared the top of the trail, then leaped over the edge and out of Sophia’s sight. The helicopter pulled up out of the canyon headed straight for Hector.

Sophia prayed the aircraft was the bright green and white of the American border patrol. The setting sun cast the vehicle in shadow. When it moved close enough, Sophia gasped. The helicopter was the dull black of those she’d seen at la Fuerte del Diablo. Her daring escape had been discovered.

She skidded to a stop, hiding her bike beneath an overhang of rocks. Her entire body shaking, she killed the engine and waited, the shadows and the encroaching nightfall providing as much cover as she could hope to find until the helicopter moved on.

As the chopper passed over her without slowing, Sophia let out the breath she’d held, then gasped as sounds of gunfire ripped through the air.

Madre de Dios. Hector.

Her foot on the kick start, Sophia fought the urge to race to the top of the canyon rim to help Hector. Nausea held her back, reminding her she wasn’t alone. The child inside her womb deserved a chance to live.

Sophia waited fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe more, for the helicopter to rise again into the sky, then realized it must have landed and the crew might be searching for her. She remained hidden for all those agonizing minutes, while the sun melted into the horizon. Storm clouds built to the west, catching the dying rays and staining the sky mauve, magenta, purple and gray.

When the helicopter finally lifted and circled back, Sophia pressed her body and the bike up against the canyon wall, sinking as far back into the darkest shadows as possible. The chopper hovered, moving slowly along the trail they’d just traveled, searching.

For her.

After what seemed like hours but was in fact only minutes, the aircraft moved on, traveling back the way it had come.

The smoky darkness of dusk edged deeper into the canyon, making the trail hard to find. Sophia eased her dirt bike out from the shadow of the overhang. Tired beyond anything she’d ever experienced, she managed to sling a stiff leg over the seat and cranked the engine with a hard kick on the starter. At first, the bike refused to start. On the fifth attempt, the engine growled to life. With a quick glance behind her, she was off, climbing the trail more slowly than she’d like in the limited light from encroaching nightfall.

At the rim of the canyon, her heart sank into her shoes.

The other motorcycle came into view first, lying on its side a couple hundred yards down the steep slope. Ahead on the trail lay the crumpled body of Hector, her ally, her only friend willing to help her out of a deadly situation.

She stopped beside Hector’s inert form, dismounted and leaned over the man to check for a pulse.

The blood soaking into the ground told the tale, and the lack of a pulse confirmed it. Hector Garza was dead.

Sophia bent double as a sob rose up her throat. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, dropping to the dry earth, where they were immediately absorbed in the dust.

Anna had sent Hector to guide her. Hector had been the one to encourage her along the way. He’d arranged to buy the bikes from a cousin in Juárez and had hidden them in a shed behind his brother’s house in Paraíso.

The hopelessness of the situation threatened to overwhelm Sophia. The only thought that kept her going was that Anna and Hector would have wanted her to continue on. Sophia brushed away the tears and looked around, not sure which way to go. Instinct told her to head north. With only a compass to guide her, and the few provisions she’d loaded into her backpack, she was on her own. Alone and pregnant.

Afraid the helicopter would return, Sophia removed the rolled blanket tied to the back of Hector’s bike and secured it to her backpack. She forced herself to climb back on the bike, the insides of her thighs and her bottom aching from the full day of riding and the strain of remaining seated on the motorcycle across the rough terrain.

She removed the compass from her pocket and clicked the button illuminating the dial. She set her course for north and took off across the desert, the night sky full of stars guiding her. With the threat of rain fast approaching, she increased her speed, refusing to give up when she’d come this far.

Before long, she came across a barbed-wire fence. If she hadn’t seen the silhouettes of the fence posts standing straight and tall in a land of short, rounded and oddly shaped cacti, saw palmetto and sagebrush, she would have run right into the razor-sharp barbed wire.

Hector had armed her with wire cutters for just such an occasion. He’d warned her that the wire was stretched taut and not to get too close or, when she cut it, she’d be wrapped in the sharp barbs, unable to extricate herself without grave harm.

Sophia held her arm out as far as she could when she cut through the bottom strand. The wire snapped, retracting into a coil farther down the fence line.

She cut the other two strands and drove her bike through, exhaustion making her movements slow and sluggish. If she didn’t find a place to hide soon, she’d drive off a bluff or wreck.

With only the stars and her compass to guide her, Sophia picked her way across the terrain, dodging vegetation not nearly large enough to hide a dirt bike or a woman, but large enough to cause serious damage should she hit it.

After the third near miss with prickly pear cacti, she finally spotted the square silhouette of a small building against the horizon. No lights gleamed from windows and no electricity poles rose up into the night sky, which might indicate life inside.

She aimed her bike for the dark structure, her body sagging over the gas tank, her hand barely able to push the throttle.