Then I wrote my own short story.

Red dirt before had always seemed beatiful before. For that matter, the Palo Duro Canyon used to be beautiful, too. Now the dirt was a traitorious substance leaving my tracks for all to seel and the dark red looked like dried blood, an omen. The canyon cliffs were walls locking me in, the colored rocks hid my foes.

This was my second day on the run. I had run from my apartment in St. Louis with nothing but my 32 gauge shotgun, .45 pistol, and briefcase in a stranger's car. People don't react quickly when you've just shoved dozens of large bills in their hands. I was gone 15 minutes after I had gotten the call.

"The yellowjackets lost last night's game." a husky female's voice had said. "I hear they're going to fire the coach and might even take away his pension. Immediately."

I was instantly cold but still managed to speak. "He'll probably resign first."

"There's a job in Cow Star that I would encourage him to take."

Click.

And that was the end of my double career as drug trafficker and informant.

Hereford, Texas might as well have been on the moon now.

They had figured out what car I was in while I was in Clinton. I dumped it and the shotgun and hitched a ride from a kind semi-driver as far as Amarillo. They were waiting for me there. Rett must have really pulled all the stops on me.

I made sure they saw me get out of the truck. No reason to take the trucker down with me. I lost them quickly after that, doubled back to Memorial park where I went into the restroom, blocked the door, and burnt all the papers from my briefcase in the trashcan. As the papers disintegrated I thought of what they were worth. A hard realization hit me. There was no one to turn to in this strange city. Rett would not hesitate to buy or kill anyone that helped me. Not with what was on those papers also in my head. I had to get out of this city on my own. I had no way to contact the G-men in Hereford without Rett catching up with me or listening in.

I hitched another ride with a carful of giggly, female college students heading to the West Texas A&M University Campus. Here finally was a break: a cellphone! I called the Hereford HQ and managed to get a rendezvious with a helicopter in the canyon despite my whole end of the conversation being in code.

But the hit men were so close I doubted the helicopter would get there quick enough. None one would think anything of a gunshot in here. It would be dismissed as poachers or a ranger killing a rattlesnake. And the canyon was plenty big enough to hide a body in and there were more than enough animals to dispose of the evidence.

I could hear them. I kept low to the ground. My clothes blended good but I knew there were too many to hope to hide from. I headed uphill hoping to get a perch from which to sniper from. I would have to change my perch as soon as they started moving. Nothing like a gunshot to give away your position. I reached the top of a hill and the bottom of the cliff wall and willed the brush to be thin so I could see my enemy.

A jeep was parked at the bottom of my hill. It appeared empty. There they were: about 10 of them some 200 feet lower than me. They must have found my trail or they would have spread out. I would have to wait for them to get a little closer. I was no marksman.

Then it seemed the canyon itself started roaring. It got louder and louder. Then I saw it. A wall of water was moving down the canyon floor, as fast as fire. The 10 below me started running towards the jeep. I started clawing my way up the cliff, no longer caring that it would make me a lovely target for the men below.

The water hit them before they could have ever taken aim on me.

It was over in a flash. Suddenly, something inside me snapped. Flash flood! Over in a flash! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I was in hysterics. Just as I got a grip and started thinking about Rett's re-enforcements there came a most beautiful sound: A helicopter.