I returned to my Jeep and drove to the end of the trail. It was only midday. I drove north on what I believed was an old dirt mining road. It was arrow straight for five miles, then turned east for a mile, where the road hit a primitive trail that looked more like a rocky wash than anything. I was reminded of a time when I followed directions to a high mountain lake farther north in New Mexico. I was told it was good I had four-wheel drive and that turned out to be true, as I climbed over boulders and straddled deep ruts. I didn’t see another car during the thirty minutes it took me to drive five miles. When I arrived, however, I found the lakeshore peppered with cars, regular cars, Pintos and Datsuns and Chevy Vegas. The sight was so astonishing that I asked a woman who sat fishing if there was another road up to the place. She gave me a look, a mildly interested look, and said, “No, only the one.”

I followed the primitive trail south and hoped that it would not rain. Rain would have been a disaster. The road never got better and actually petered out completely as the hillside flattened, just when a highway came into sight. When I got to the road, I realized it was, in fact, 380, the road that had taken me so many times now from San Antonio to Bingham and on to the Nazis’ compound. I had come full circle; it seemed I could not escape.

I drove past the diner, hoping that DeLois would not see me pass, on to the turn left to the compound. I drove past it up the hill far enough that I could park behind a bluff and remain unnoticed. I watched the Nazis through my field glasses. I thought of my friend who had died in that helicopter crash in the Canyon.

I watched for a long hour under that sun, consumed the last of my water, and finally gave up. Nothing happened down there. I at least could have found some interesting Nazis, some industrious ones, but aside from the keeping of slaves, they bored me to death. Why weren’t they building an armored personnel vehicle or a ballistic missile? Instead they were inside their little house eating bologna sandwiches or having a circle jerk. Still, my Nazis scared me.

It was hotter in New Mexico.

The knock at the door came as I was drifting off to sleep and scared me near to death. I considered not opening the door. If I had had a usable window in the washroom, I would have climbed through it. DeLois’s voice poked through my haze of fear and I came around. I still held grave reservations about opening the door, but I did. I did and I found DeLois and five other people, three women and two men, all looking rather serious.