By Peter B. and Art Intelli
Chapter One: Trespass
The Texas sun was a cruel, unblinking eye in the sky, scorching the blacktop and everything around it. Peter wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and habitually ran his fingers through his long blond hair like a comb. He cursed under his breath. His rental car—a cheap sedan that had looked dependable enough back in Austin—now sat silent and steaming on the side of the road, its hood up like a white flag of surrender. The nearest sign of civilization had been a lonely gas station fifty miles back. He hadn’t seen another car in hours.
With no cell service, no breeze, and no luck, Peter shouldered his backpack and headed east across the dusty plains, hoping to find a ranch, a house, a human being—anything. The ground was cracked and dry, dotted with stubborn tufts of grass and the occasional mesquite tree. He passed a wire fence that looked like it hadn’t been repaired since the Reagan administration. He didn’t notice the sun-bleached sign nailed to one of the posts:
