He looked too. “I guess it is. I must have scraped it on something when I hit. I’m all right.”

They walked up the last few feet of the hill and around to the other side of the church and sat in the moonlight to look at Sam’s leg. The blood streak went from his knee to his ankle, but it was already drying. “No harm done,” he said.

They kept to the side of the church, sat down in the dark shadows by it, and watched the second truck make its way up to the level of the church, where the town’s main street began. The truck traveled along the street without slowing. At the end of the block of closed shops and restaurants, the road curved a little and went downward, and the truck disappeared.

Sam and Remi stayed at the back of the church building and waited while the other trucks climbed the road and passed through the town, one by one. Their small convoy had consisted of five trucks, but the Fargos stayed where they were as long as they could see headlights in the distance. They counted twenty trucks before the road was clear again. It was nearly dawn when they walked out of their hiding place and saw that there were people in some of the shops already. They passed a baker’s shop, where a man was firing up a big wood-burning oven behind the building. There were people in the yards outside their houses, gathering eggs, feeding chickens, starting fires.

Sam said, “I’m hungry.”

“Me too. Did any of our Guatemalan Quetzales survive our swim?”

“I think so. I’ll look in the bag.” He opened the waterproof bag, shuffled around in it, and found his wallet. “That’s good news. My wallet survived.” He looked inside. “The money too. Let’s see if we can buy some breakfast.”

They walked toward the shop where the man was stoking the oven and saw two men heading for the same place. One wore a wrinkled seersucker suit and the other a priest’s black coat and collar. They strolled down the center of the street, chatting in a friendly way, as they approached the little restaurant.

They and the host had a quick exchange of greetings, and then the priest turned to the Fargos and said in English, “Good morning. My name is Father Gomez. And this is Dr. Carlos Huerta, our town physician.”

Sam shook their hands. “Sam Fargo. And this is my wife, Remi.”

“So,” she said, “the parish priest and the doctor together at dawn. I hope nobody has died during the night.”

“No,” said the priest. “A baby was born a while ago. The family sent for me to baptize the little boy immediately, so we thought we might as well begin the day here. Miguel Alvarez saw us coming. And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”