The Frighteners Read Online Free PDF Page B

crossed into old Mexico frequently, my knowledge of the language is rudimentary; and I hadn’t been down here recently. . . .Counting back, I was shocked to realize that it had been well over ten years since, also in the line of duty, I’d last made this crossing from Douglas to Agua Prieta. Dark Water, to you.
    I saw that we’d reached the ragged and run-down edge of the town. The low buildings were adobe brick from which, in many cases, the plaster had flaked off if it had ever existed. The street could be called paved, but you had to dodge the numerous and sizeable potholes; beyond the next cross street it degenerated abruptly into a dirt track leading across a cow pasture. As my ersatz bride had pointed out, it was clearly not the highway we wanted.
    I made a U-turn and started back the way we’d come only to have a loafer outside a shabby cantina wave a warning hand to let me know that I was proceeding the wrong way up a one-way street. They don’t mark them any more clearly than the highways; there’s only an occasional, casual little arrow painted on the comer of a building or tacked to a telephone pole. I U-tumed again—fortunately there was very little traffic here—and pulled up beside the gent who’d warned me. I hit the switch to bring down the right-hand window. The honeymoon heap boasted every power convenience known to man, including some I hadn’t figured out yet.
    I leaned across the front seat and called, “Cananea, por favor .”
    The man came forward, frowning. My pronunciation was apparently a little off; he hadn’t caught the name. When I repeated it, he grinned happily, showing big, white teeth in a dark, unshaved face.
    “Ah, Cananea! ”
    He proceeded to let me know, with gestures and rapid-fire Spanish, exactly where I’d gone astray and in what manner I should now conduct myself in order to rectify my unfortunate error. How they choose to speak their language is their business, of course, but they’d make it easier for dumb gringos if they slowed it down a bit. The elaborate sign language helped, however. I got the general idea, thanked my informant profusely, and drove away.
    My companion wasn’t impressed. “Terrific!” she said sourly. “People are trying to kill me, I’m coerced into doing crazy things like pretending to be the wife of a perfect stranger; and it turns out that the high-powered guide and protector they’ve married me to, more or less, can’t even find his way through the first Mexican town we hit without asking directions from a sidewalk bum!”
    I glanced at her sharply. “What’s this about killing?”
    She said, “I suppose I’ll have to tell you all about it, but let’s not overload your feeble intelligence until it’s got us on the right road.”
CHAPTER 4
    I found the main road and made the prescribed turn. The town of Agua Prieta fell behind us. The Mexican landscape was bleak and rugged. It was covered with low, spiny brush punctuated by prickly cactus and thorny mesquite. That southwestern vegetation takes its defenses seriously. The highway was a narrow, winding, patched strip of blacktop that was not designed for a freeway locomotive like our Allante; but the beast had fairly quick power steering, and its suspension wasn’t too soggy. I’d driven worse roads in less suitable automobiles.
    The day was sunny, the sky was very blue, and the desert air was so clear that the hills on the distant horizon were as sharply defined as those nearby; there were no atmospheric gradations whatever. It was a good day on which to start on a honeymoon, but I would have preferred to pick my girl and have nothing on my mind but love. As it was, I was conscious of having been thrown into this job very low on information; and I couldn’t help wondering how much of what I’d been told in the rush was the truth. Mr. Somerset with his careful, three-day whiskers wasn’t a gent who inspired a great deal of confidence in me, although he seemed to have sold