We eat lunch in the Stage Stop Saloon, where a waitress with impossibly frizzy hair brings us glasses of mineral-tasting iced water and marvels at our accents. The place is decorated with a stuffed buffalo head, old guns and pictures of anaemic-looking miners nailed skew to the walls, and on first glance it might be taken for one of those themed Cowboy ‘n’ Injun restaurants in Leicester Square, were it not for the two actual real-life Indians slouched in a corner booth, dipping tortilla chips into a bowl of salsa. In between staring and pointing behind her hand at the Indians, Emmy orders a plate of ketchup and a chocolate milkshake. Jack gets a hamburger which is so overcooked it arrives as black and hard as a hockey puck and the mystery dish I settle for, Navajo bread, turns out to be the sort of thing the God of Impending Obesity might send down to earth as a light starter. It sits on the plate, an airy pillow of golden fried bread covered in chilli beans, chopped tomatoes, grated cheese, shards of iceberg lettuce and diced green chillies. I wimpishly order a child’s portion, which is nevertheless the size of a trampoline, and though it remains in my stomach for many weeks to come there’s no question it’s quite the best thing I’ve ever eaten. While I’m gasping for breath, the waitress comes over and says, ‘Are you still working on that, honey?’ as though it’s a set of accounts that I must diligently sign off on before our bill can be settled.

By this time, we’ve all had more than enough. It’s late afternoon and the flu-like symptoms from a combination of sleep deprivation, constipation and an eight-hour time difference have crept up on all of us and we trundle back towards Temerosa, shopping bags flapping in the pickup, the children huddled together, eating Reese’s Pieces, dull-eyed and silent.

I entirely fail to notice the police car on my tail until it snaps on headlights and flashes me. It’s a big white Ford Explorer with a green strip down one side and the whirring red lights of looming trouble. I pull the truck over. I have no idea what the speed limit is round here. The road has been deserted for the last ten miles except for a single rabbit breaking cover and some hairy little things, which I took to be chipmunks, zigzagging under the wheels as though engaging me in a highly amusing game of Russian Roulette.